Collateral Damage
by Tamlin
Summary: What is a wife to do with a depressed husband who wants to kill a perfectly charming man? Saitou finds out. Sequel to "Terms of Engagement"
1. A Better Life

AN: I am still in the middle of another story, so this one will only be updated every once in a while, but I had the idea and it was nagging at me.

**None of this story has not been obsessively proofread or betaed. I don't have time to do it and if you want to complain about the typos, be my beta!**

**Series disclaimer for this and all subsequent chapters.: **Rurouni Kenshin is the work of Nobuhiro Watsuki. I am only using these characters for entertainment purposes. If you enjoy this, you will probably enjoy Nobuhiro Watsuki's work even more. Go buy it. You'll enjoy it.

Collateral Damage

Chapter 1: A Better Life

* * *

**Saitou (1879)**

Chou sat at his desk grumbling to himself about having to sit in an uncomfortable, western style chair and shooting evil looks at his immediate superior's door. It was only a matter of time until he discovered that he could put his feet up on the desk and tip his chair back to recline in peace and repose until his superior opened the door and caught him. The fact that Saitou preferred to keep his door closed and was too busy to check on his subordinate's behavior would be the final trigger to incite the unavoidable deterioration into the slums of outright slacking of duty.

Saitou didn't even have to look at the door to know this. The lazy scratch of Chou's western pen, the sighs that were becoming more frequent, the uncomfortable shifting about all screamed to him through the closed door that his underling was soon going to make his grand discovery.

He hadn't decided just what he would do when it did happen, but he was already planning on a few surprises. He could slip outside quietly and then sneak up behind the dolt and surprise him, probably causing the buffoon to fall to the floor quite spectacularly. Coordinated movement did seem beyond Chou's capabilities at times, which made his entire career as a self appointed sword hunter seem quite suspicious. It was probably a good thing for Chou that the Battousai had gone soft both in skill and in his head. Another plan was to just yell for Chou to put his feet down and get back to work. It would startle the dimwit, and it would add to his reputation of knowing all and seeing even more.

He finally decided he'd probably do nothing. What was the point? Chou lolling about the office didn't impact anything. He, himself, could probably put his feet up on his desk, lean back in his chair and take a long nap and nothing would really change. Politicians would still be corrupt, hypocritical bastards; crime would still infest the joyous Meji era; left over loonies from the revolution would still occasionally crawl out from beneath their rocks; and he would still be stuck filling out forms.

A once proud free wolf now caged and sold off to the circus to wear an ill-fitting costume while doing stunts to entertain his new masters. When not performing entertaining tricks, he was stuffed back into his kennel to lick his paws and be poked at by morons with sharp sticks. The sticks they used were pens and the pokes were all written neatly on paper that he had to acknowledge, sign, and either file or return. Lucky him, he was even on display in the front window of the police department.

He shook the bitterness out of his head and concentrated on the highly important, not to be ignored, must be done immediately paperwork (poke) for assigning protection to a fat tick of a politician during an upcoming children's party at the English ambassador's residence.

_Maybe I should take that nap now and not put it off._

He dully scratched out the required information and put the form into the stack of other highly important, not to be ignored, must be done immediately pokes that he'd already finished. Chou shuffled uneasily about, and Saitou paused listening for the thunk of boots hitting the top of the desk. When it didn't come, he glanced at the clock some thoughtful person had stuck on his wall and made a bet with himself that it would take the moron a half hour to discover the bliss of sprawling in his chair. A few fellow police officers ambled by his window chatting about the latest geisha at that had appeared on the scene and how white her skin was.

Saitou sighed and picked out the next amazingly important, Japan-will-fall-into-flamming-chaos report, a requisition for horses for an annual celebration of a castle sinking into a lake. He glanced at the clock again, looked at the pile of papers he still had to go through, and sighed. Some days just didn't end soon enough, or even worse, ended too soon.

Still, it could be worse. He knew this for a fact. He once arrogantly stated that nothing could tame a wolf. He was amazed that kami hadn't struck him down for the lie. Then again, wasn't that what his entire life had become, a lie? So what was one more on the dung heap of his life? Money couldn't tame a wolf, neither could position, influence, or luxurious goods. No, it took something far more simple, something common to tame a wolf, poverty.

"Hey, captain." Chou had wrenched himself away from his imminent discovery and was now slouched in his door radiating ineptitude. "It's time for dinner. You want some?"

"No." He quickly made a few notes for the arrangement of the horses and picked up the next, a lesser secretary to the minister of the department of sanitation wanted someone to escort his wife and six children to Kyoto's cherry blossom festival. The secretary didn't have time to go himself, and it was of vital importance that all six of his children appreciate the blossoms. Saitou looked up to eye the dolt that would be escorting the lovely lady and her offspring.

Chou was idly chewing on his fingernail and ambling back to his desk, having forgotten about closing Saitou's door. Beyond him, the rest of the station was equally lacksiddasical. A group of officers were gathered together around one desk laughing and sipping tea. He would have suspected sake, but after the painful lesson he had dealt out last week, he doubted it. It would take them at least another week, maybe two, before one of them brought sake in to work again. A few officers were slouched dispiritedly at their desks staring out the window, and his immediate superior's door was closed, but Saitou could, with a bit of concentration, hear the soft snores coming from that office. He guessed that it was slightly better than last month when they had raided a corrupt geisha house and his superior had spent two weeks "questioning" various geishas. The grunts, moans, and thumping had made working rather difficult.

He got up and quietly closed the door. He had at least two more hours of paperwork to do. After that, he could go on patrol, staying out until after midnight. He could then return, fill out a few reports about his patrol activities, and if the gods were kind and something interesting happened, he could just fall asleep in his office to begin his day anew tomorrow. If they weren't, he could always find something to do, something that needed investigating, someone that needed to be arrested. He hadn't arrested Sano for a week, and that usually took up the whole night and part of the next day.

He nodded his head and set his plans. With a lighter heart, he went back to his paperwork. He was doing his duty. He was protecting the people of Japan from a dangerous thug. He was keeping the streets safe for honest citizens.

As long as he didn't have to go home and look into Tokio's eyes, everything would be fine.

**Tokio (1870)**

Tokio watched Saitou. He was squatting in the middle of what should have been a field of green crops, sifting dry dirt through his fingers. It had rained hard during the growing season, destroying the small seedlings before they had a chance to do more than cast a tiny shadow on the earth. Now, there was no rain and no crops.

He didn't say anything to her. He didn't even acknowledge her presence, though she knew he sensed her walking out of the small, tattered shack they now called home and to the edge of the field. He ignored her, as he had for months, too ashamed to even look her in the eye.

Saitou Hajime, captain of the Shinsengumi, who had stood in the presence of the shogun, who fought bravely alongside his men, who was one of the most feared swordsmen in Japan, reduced to a poor farmer living in the most barren, worthless patch of soil the Meji could find. Punishment, they said, for daring to stand against them. Be happy, they said, that we are letting you live. Be content, they said, with the generosity that we are showing by giving you this land.

It wasn't generosity. It was hatred. It was fear. Saitou was an enigma to them. They who replaced their honor with power and traded their swords for Western money could not understand Saitou. The codes that Saitou grew up with were snickered at as quaint, old fashion customs as the Meji dressed in their Western clothing in a vain attempt to get the Westerners to accept them as equals.

"Do you wish for lunch, husband?" Tokio called, hoping that for once he would turn to look at her, give her one of his little smirking smiles, and come in.

He picked up another handful of dirt, crumbling it in his fingers, feeling it shift like lifeless dust against his skin.

Tokio bowed to him, even if he would not turn to see it, and quietly left. She feared to press, to question, to even speak. Her biggest fear was that he'd commit seppuku out of shame, leaving her in this place, alone.

Damn Kurasawa and his lies, his tales of building a strong samurai community where they would keep alive traditions that were even now being trampled on. She knew he'd been lying, but it had given Saitou something besides the darkness of Echigo prison to think of. She doubted that Saitou had believed him either, but what choice did they have with the Meji at their backs with their false smiles and ready guns. Better to nod and meet each smile with one equally false, to thank with humble voices for the Meji's generosity, to believe Kurasawa's opium-like dreams and walk into this hell with at least the shreds of dignity that still remained.

Now, they didn't even have those. They had nothing. Even the dilapidated, one room, shack was really Kurasawa's. Not that he was often there. He was too busy building his community of proud samurai. He only showed up for an occasional meal which had be spread before him with all the gratitude and ceremony of peasants offering tribute to their lord. She would have sent Saitou away, to spare him that humiliation if she could, but he wouldn't leave and she couldn't bring herself to ask, not with Kurasawa's eyes lingering too long on her and his not so subtle hints that he could make her life better.

She didn't want her life better. She just wanted Saitou back.

* * *

**Research Notes:**

**Houses**: Yes, here I am once again with my research. The house that Saitou and Tokio are in is a peasant house in the most remote part of Japan, excluding Hokkaido. I did look into the minka of Japan, but decided that in that part of Japan and in the conditions that they were placed under, the more common minka wouldn't be available. Oh, if you're wondering, Hiko lives in a minka type house with a central fire pit, stone pilings, and a wood floor. His poor abused door is also rather typical of a minka. The shack has the central fire pit, but has dirt floors, small windows, and a single room for sleeping and working. The door is probably a woven reed mat. If you want to know more, I can highly recommend "Everyday Things in Premodern Japan" by Susan B. Hanley.

**Saitou being on display**: In one episode, I noticed that Saitou seemed to have an office overlooking the main street. For someone who likes to slink around in dark places, I thought he'd be rather uncomfortable there, which made me start wondering why he'd accept such an office (I'm ignoring the whole weirdness of his back being towards a window).

**Before anyone gets upset about the dates**. I tried the best I could to find a good timeline for this and after chasing around quite a few different sites, I finally settled on this one. The date for Tokio's part is deliberately a year before the real marriage between Yaso and Saitou, but I already have them married so it isn't like that's going to affect much. If someone does find a site that has more accurate dates, I would love to know. I do like my research to be accurate when I can.

**Kurasawa**: He probably saved Saitou's life in reality. I am taking a lot of liberties with his character and I acknowledge it right up front. Sorry, big guy.

**Tokio calling her husband Saitou**: It's an indication of something, not a mistake just as her being called Tokio instead of the diminution of Toki is deliberate as well.


	2. Battousai and Bodhisattva

AN: Still no beta. I need to work on that…

Collateral Damage

Chapter 2: Battousai and Bodhisattva

The market spread out in a colorful disarray as vendors called out to passersby about the value of their wares. Children yelled and raced through the crowd, free of their parents. Men and women milled through the shops calling greetings to neighbors and chattering in groups. Tokio walked quietly along with her son and her latest charge in tow, looking for new clothes for the boys. Saitou's "temporary" placement of Eiji in their home had somehow morphed into a full adoption. While she didn't mind, it would have been nice to hear it from her husband, instead of having to finally decide after months of uncertainty that the child was indeed going to stay.

Not that the lack of information was surprising. If he hadn't come to drop the child off, she might not have seen her husband, which counting the six months he had disappeared afterwards, for a record absence of thirteen months. As it was, he had appeared, stayed long enough to hand over Eiji, quickly father a second child, and evaporate until he decided to show up last month, announce their imminent move to Tokyo and slink off leaving her standing bewildered in the middle of what had been the first stable home she'd had since the revolution.

"Can I get a blue gi?" Eiji was bouncing up and down at her side trying to get a look around the people that crowed past them. "It was my brother's favorite color."

"Me too. Me too." Tsutomo, clinging to her side, chimed in to agree with the wondrous being that was his new "cousin" Eiji.

Tokio didn't care what color clothes they wanted, just as long as they were durable. "Blue is nice. How about two blue and one green?"

Eiji nodded then, getting a glimpse through the crowd pointed excitedly, "Hey, over there! Look puppets!"

Tokio gestured for the boys to head over to the show and followed after them to find a place to sit. If it allowed her to rest for a small time, she was more than thrilled to let the boy watch puppets. She was getting to the heavy, tiring part of her pregnancy and every moment of rest was prized. Maybe this time, she would learn not to fall for the I'm-so-tired-Tokio line and make Saitou sleep on the same futon as the children he so generously kept providing her with.

"Sweet potatoes! Sweet potatoes!" A vendor called out at the edge of the crowd. "Hot, sweet potatoes!"

Tokio went over to the woman and purchased one after watching Eiji and Tsutomo elbow and shove their way to the front of the crowd like the savage little barbarians she knew them to be. It really didn't surprise her much that her own dear offspring, despite his tiny size and tender age, was actually the more vicious of the two. Saitou had done a lovely job duplicating himself with that one. She wondered if she was even now carrying another wolf pup that would spring into the world looking for things to sink its baby fangs into. She went and stood in the shade of a nearby building and made a mental note to herself to find a wet nurse.

The puppeteer wasn't the most talented in the world, but the children seemed suitably impressed. They all gasped at the right places, and cheered when they were supposed to. She doubted the puppeteer really intended the scene where the brave prince died to be the comedic moment, and she didn't think that the old king suddenly speaking the lines that should have come out of the young maid's mouth was meant to indicate a sudden rash of demon possession, but who was she to judge fine children's entertainment?

"Oh man, that sucked." An older boy with spiky black hair moaned. "Why can't we ever see a good show."

Apparently, she was a good judge. Tokio nodded to herself and walked over to claim her two boys before they caused too much bodily harm to the other well behaved innocents that were tearing out of the area with all the charm of rabid weasels being released from a cage. She wondered if she should be proud that her two had come out of the childish melee unscathed after leaving a trail of bruised ribs and shins in their precious wake.

"Are you two hungry?" She ruffled her little wolf pup's hair.

In response, he snatched the half eaten potato out of her hand and stuffed it in his mouth. Eiji, who hadn't been completely corrupted by his adoptive brother's wild manners, nodded politly. While Tsutomo gnawed his way through the mouthful of potato, they walked back to the vendor.

"Yahiko, I've been looking everywhere for you." A young woman emerged from the crowd and snagged the spiky haired boy's ear. "You were supposed to get the tofu."

"Hey, let go!" The boy wiggled. "I was just getting it."

Eiji perked up as something in the crowd drew his attention. "It's Kenshin."

Tokio, trying to save her wolf cub from grabbing her new potato and stuffing it in his mouth with its predecessor, barely glanced over, "Who?"

"Hey, Kenshin!" Eiji waved running through the crowd. "Kenshin!"

"Eiji." Tokio called to his retreating back as Tsutomo sank his teeth into her wrist.

Saitou was definitely going to spend the rest of his life sleeping out on the porch. She didn't care if a blizzard settled over their house for a decade. When Saitou finally made his appearance, he was banished.

As she pulled her darling off and assessed the damage, she reluctantly admitted she'd give in. When he appeared, she'd be so happy to see him, so lonely for his company, that she'd probably quickly succumb to another round of motherhood if it kept him next to her for even a single evening. Maybe she could even coax something like a few complete sentences out of him next time. In maybe ten more children, she might even progress to a small conversation. Of course seeing that he was averaging about one child every year and a half, if she included him leaving Eiji with her, it would take fifteen years. If she didn't count Eiji then it would take about thirty years.

"This is Kenshin." Eiji had dragged a small red haired man over to her. "He was the one who fought Senkaku."

The man gave her an embarrassed smile. "It is nice to meet you."

The spiky haired boy and the young woman came over, looking curiously at them.

"Who are you?" The boy, Yahiko if she remembered correctly, gave Eiji a glare.

"Oh, please, let me introduce you." The red haired man politely motioned to Eiji. "Eiji Ei'ichiro, this is Yahiko Myojin and Karou Kamiya. Yahiko, Karou-dono, this is Eiji who I met on my way to Kyoto."

"Nice to meet you." Yahiko grinned but gave Tokio a questioning look.

Eiji, remembering those rarely displayed customs called manners, nodded his chin at her. "That's Tokio and that's Tsutomo. I'm staying with them."

The woman smiled. "That's very nice of you to take him in. Kenshin told me what happened."

Tokio was about to say some stupid, expected platitude along the lines of how wonderful and sweet Eiji was or how it was the least she could do to help out a poor orphan, when she caught sight of Kenshin's face. His jaw was hanging open and his eyes had gotten huge.

"You…you…you're Tokio-dono?" The man finally gasped. "The Tokio-dono?"

Unsure, and fearing the man was having some sort of odd mental problem, Tokio edged her son behind her. "Yes, my name is Tokio."

"Kenshin,"the young woman reached over, obviously worried about the man, "what is it?"

"She…she…"

Tokio wondered if it was just an odd speech impediment.

"She's a Bodhisattva." He finally breathed.

The girl's eyebrows arched up in surprise, nearly as much as Tokio's. They both looked at the man with identical looks that clearly said that the red head had been out in the sun too long and should probably go home, drink something cool, and lie down until he had recovered what few wits he could still claim.

"Karou-dono, she married him!" He waved his hand towards where Tokio knew the police station was located. "She's a living saint!"

"I'm finally appreciated." Tokio sighed, now understanding the sudden fit. The man had obviously met her dear spouse and having survived the experience, was understandably impressed that someone had taken on the job of housebreaking the mangy wolf. Not that she was having any great success in the endeavor.

"Uh…Kenshin." Karou had either not met her sweet husband, or hadn't understood the reference and still looked worried over the other's mental health.

"She's married to him! Him!" Kenshin was still struggling with his awe.

Tokio took pity on him, "Maybe you know my husband, Fujita Goro?"

The young woman shook her head, "No, I'm sorry I…"

"Saitou!" Kenshin managed to gasp out. "She's Saitou's wife."

**Saitou**

The city was dismally peaceful. It seemed that somewhere, someone had declared a holiday on all crime. Even Sanosuke was peacefully laying about on the tanuki girl's front step chewing a piece of grass and watching the sky. Unless he wanted to cite the lummox for grazing cattle inside city property, he couldn't even relieve his boredom by a rousingly stupid confrontation. He had even walked into the local yakuza's main business front and only found an old woman sweeping the floor of an obviously abandoned building. For a moment, he had become hopeful that he could track down the new gang hide-out, but the old woman spoiled it by calmly handing him a piece of paper that had the organization's new address, in Kyoto. Now, he was reduced to walking the streets pretending to be happy that the citizens of Tokyo were all safe, happy, and crime free.

He nodded to a fellow officer as they passed, the other heading off towards the high end residential area while he kept meandering towards the market. Perhaps he could find a pickpocket or someone stealing produce. He had little to keep him busy at the office since his superior had decided to take a few days off to "investigate" some "odd" activity up in the mountains. Why the man thought anyone would actually believe he required the company of three women and a bevy of attendants was only another sign of how little he really thought of his own department.

The market was depressingly law abiding. Happy people were wandering around spreading good will and upstanding virtues to their fellow man. Vendors waved cheerful hellos as they sold their goods to honest, hard working folk. Children ran safe and carefree under the indulgent and loving eyes of their attentive parents. Even the stupid dogs were politely not peeing on corners or defecating in public places. The bright, soft sunshine mocked him as spring breezes floated their flower scented way past him. Birds hopped joyously in the trees chirping and singing. Even the soft, white clouds that had promised early last night they would pour rain, had changed their minds and floated serenely in the bright, blue sky.

Growling, Saitou scoured the market one last time. Everything seemed to smile beatifically back at him as peace, happiness, and good morals reigned supreme.

"It's like being stuck in Himura's head." Saitou grumbled, stalking towards a side street that would lead towards the governmental area.

That was when he found out that his life, as he knew, and even sometimes managed to tolerate, had become truly cursed. There, standing together like lifelong friends was his wife, his only son, Eiji, Himura, the tanuki girl, and the brat. He quickly slid out of sight, dampening down his ki so Himura wouldn't notice him.

The tanuki girl was laughing at something Eiji had said and the boy was grinning proudly as the brat puffed up looking like an affronted rooster. Himura was standing next to his wife and both seemed to be contemplating which restaurant they wanted to go to. Tsutomo, clinging to his mother was insistently pointing at a noodle house, but Tokio seemed to be more in favor of a tea house. Himura was wavering between the noodle house and his usual haunt of the Akabeko.

Saitou shifted his position to get a better look at his wife. She was beautiful. He wondered if she even realized that she nearly glowed when she was pregnant. Her skin always turned nearly impossibly smooth and creamy, while her hair, even wound and pinned into place with combs was lustrously soft. She moved with the same exquisite grace that she had first trapped him with and now instead of it being an artifice, it had become true, ingrained, and stunningly casual.

For a moment, he almost stepped out into the street and walked across to her. He would have enjoyed seeing the brat and the tanuki jump, but mostly he could have stood next to Tokio for a few moments, perhaps picked up Tsutomo and taken them both into the noodle house. There they could have sat down around a table and had lunch together. Tsutomo would probably have giggled and tried to steal his meal while Tokio huffed at them both for poor manners while smothering a smile. After lunch, they could have gone home. He could lend her his arm for support like he'd seen the Westerners do to their wives, which he thought was a nice way to keep her close to him. He could spend the rest of the afternoon sitting on the porch with Tokio at his side and maybe playfully argue about something. He'd even forgo his cigarettes, knowing that she disliked the smell. When it got too late to continue, he could have gone to sleep with her curled against him as his hand rested over her rounded belly to feel if the baby kicked against his palm.

He took a deep breath and turned away. He'd go check on some of the more suspicious politicians. He doubted that he'd be disappointed. None of that lot could keep from sticking their greedy fingers into money coffers or trying to crookedly broker themselves into a more powerful position. One good blood sucking tick would keep him busy for weeks, maybe even months.

**Tokio**

"He did what?" Tokio felt herself grow cold.

"He attacked Sanosuke." Karou bit her lip looking anxiously around to where Kenshin was playing with Tsutomo and Eiji. "He came here disguised as a medicine seller and then attacked Sano with a sword."

Sano, a rather pleasant young man, had greeted her when she had come into Karou's dojo. After getting over the shock of who she was married to, he had good naturedly let Tsutomo maul him before heading off to quieter, less child infested climes.

"Sano was unconscious for over three days." Karou looked over to where Kenshin was getting a basket of flowers dumped over his head. "All so that Saitou could get Kenshin angry enough to fight him."

That was what she had feared.

It hadn't taken her more than a few moments to figure out the gentle red head had once been the dreaded Battousai. Unlike many, she had no illusions that just because he had once worked as a hitikori that he was the blood stained demon others imagined. To listen to rumor, sweet, funny Okita had been a dangerous psychopath who haunted back alleys thirsting for human blood. In a way, Kenshin reminded her of Okita. He was kind, patient, adored children, and in an awkward, overly polite way, charming. In short, he was Saitou's complete opposite. He was also someone that Saitou would respect. Despite his silly, harmless act, he was quite intelligent and she knew enough of the Batousai to understand his skill with a sword was at least Saitou's equal.

"They nearly killed each other." Karou was still obviously shaken by the memory. "The only thing that got them to stop was Mr. Okubo."

Worse. This was much worse than she had thought. Saitou had suffered through periods of moodiness and depression since the revolution. It generally manifested as withdrawal, either physically or emotionally from the people around him. During the worst times, he became passively self-destructive, not eating, rarely sleeping, and ignoring small matters like freezing weather, vicious rain storms, and extreme heat. To deliberately force a duel onto an opponent that had the skill to kill him…

Karou continued worrying, unknowingly describing in her fretting just how far Saitou had fallen back into the darkness of his own making. The tale of Shishio and what had happened on Mt. Hiei, while very upsetting to the young swordswoman, terrified Tokio. It was only because Kenshin, the man Saitou had and apparently still wanted to kill, had been there that Saitou was still alive. Even then, her dear husband had taken the first opportunity that presented itself to run straight back into danger. This was no longer just passive behavior. Saitou was trying to kill himself.

"Then he just showed up during the whole nightmare with Enishi." Karou was working her way around to being outraged.

"Yes, he's very good at just showing up." Tokio gave her a small grin. "Did he blather on about something, refuse to do a lick of work, and then disappear again?"

"Well, yes." Karou looked taken back.

Out in the yard, Kenshin made an amused sound. She had no doubts that the former hitikori had heard every word of the conversation between her and Karou. She would have been more surprised if he hadn't.

"Typical." Tokio patted her rounded belly. "Just be happy he didn't leave you any little bonuses."

Karou, as she expected, blushed and looked around for another topic. Kenshin tossed a ball to Eiji and came over to them smiling. He really was like Okita, which made Tokio even more suspicious of her darling spouse's behavior.

"Tokio-dono, will you stay for dinner?" He tapped a finger against his chin thoughtfully. "We are having roast fish, miso, and burdock."

"That sounds lovely." Tokio shook her head though. "But Tsutomo is going to need to go to bed in just an hour. Believe me, you don't want an overly tired Tsutomo anywhere near you, your loved ones, or any precious possessions you might own."

The obviously child adoring Karou looked lovingly at her little wolf cub and gave a small laugh. "Oh, we'll be alright, I'm sure."

Kenshin, probably a bit more versed in wolf-like people, gave the toddler a wary glance that Tokio easily interpreted to mean: _Ye gods! It's a tiny Saitou. Should I strap on protective armor now or just run._

"Really. We need to head home." Tokio pulled herself up from the dojo step and waved to the boys to come. "My husband will want dinner."

Karou looked pityingly at her. "Oh, yes… Well, you are always welcome back here."

Eiji, overhearing the last comment as he raced up to them, nodded enthusiastically. "We'll definitely be back. Won't we?" He didn't look to Tokio for confirmation, but to Tsutomo who nodded his little head happily. "Kenshin told me that Karou teaches swordsmanship! Could I…"

Tokio opened her mouth to squash that plan, sure that Saitou would disapprove when an idea popped into her head. It involved the boys, an ex-hitikori, a sneaky husband with a death wish, and a bit of invasion of her husband's sacred duties as a father. "What a wonderful idea." She turned to Karou. "I don't suppose you would consider taking on two more students. What with everything," she delicately patted her round belly, "I would be very grateful to anyone who could teach them a bit of discipline and use up all that energy they have."

Karou, who really was a sweet, naive girl who seemed to have some masochistic need to help every stray that wandered into her life, nodded enthusiastically. "It would be my pleasure."

Kenshin, who was a bit more worldly, looked warily at her. "Saitou would not approve, that he would not."

Tokio smiled, "I am sure that he will not object to the boys learning the basics here. He's wanted the boys to learn swordsmanship, but with work… It'll be one less thing for him to worry over."

Kenshin still looked doubtful, but Karou was already enthusing over the idea. "We'll begin tomorrow!"

"Karou-dono maybe…" Kenshin hesitated.

Tokio ignored the dreaded Battousai calmly and focused on the weakest point for her attack, Karou. By the eager gleam in the young swordswoman's eyes and the air of neglect the dojo wafted around, she knew the points to strike at to get through any defenses that might be raised. "Oh, please don't worry…" She turned to Karou reaching out a comforting hand and gesturing dismissively towards the children's now dirty clothes with the other. "I can easily afford to have you teach them. My husband is very generous with the children. I'll even send food with them so you won't have to deal with feeding two ravenous boys." She gave her head a motherly shake. "They eat so much. They're like locusts sometimes."

Karou nodded. "I'm sure it will be fine."

Tokio smiled fondly as the boys, seeing a bright future of whacking each other with various deadly weapons, whooped and danced around, effectively mauling and distracting Kenshin. "Fine, we'll be here bright and early."

The Battousai tried one last time to cobble together a counter argument. "Saitou will be most displeased, Karou-dono! That he will! He will not like his wife and children…"

Tokio, reaching deep into her bag of dirty tricks, lifted helpless defeated eyes to meet Karou's. "Saitou…well, to be honest he might…" She sighed tragically, turning her head away as if defeated. "I just hoped that maybe I could do something…"

Karou, seeing an opportunity to help a suffering human being, leapt to her rescue. "Bright and early! I'll be expecting you!"

Tokio, still looking hesitant, but now letting an expression of guarded hopefulness slip through, gave Karou a wobbly, but brave smile and nearly whispered, "Thank you so much. I have no words to express my gratitude."

Kenshin looked like he might still want to protest, but Karou cut him off. "We'll be ready for them." Her tone lowered into a definite warning. "Won't we."

The Battousai bowed his head, defeated. "Bright and early." He mumbled unenthusiastically.

Tokio nodded to herself. It was all set then. Her husband's long wallow in the lands of depression was going to come to an end. She wanted her wolf back and she now had a plan on how to do it.

* * *

Thank you for reading. Please leave a review.

**Research Notes: **

Not a lot this time.

Puppet Shows: These unsurprisingly were quite popular in the Meji era and would often involve historical themes.

Restaurants: Beef pot houses like the Akabeko were new and trendy during this time, tea houses were cleaning up and specializing in serving…tea, and noodle houses were becoming popular as a cheap place for a quick meal. Oh, in noodle houses, it was polite to slurp your noodles. Just take a bit in your mouth and slurp the whole thing down. I tried this and found that I lack the proper slurping technique and end up getting broth all over and sometimes getting smacked in the face by the tail end of the noodles. It's a skill that I will happily keep trying to improve.

Street Vendors: These were enterprising people who would sell quick meals like roasted sweet potatoes to passersby. They still have this in many Asian countries and most of the food is delicious. Personally, I used to love the roasted chestnuts and the street version of waffles with honey.


	3. Wreckage

AN: Still no beta… Any volunteers? Sorry I haven't been in contact with anyone. Life had really been tough lately and sometimes just getting through a day is all I can manage. If you contacted me previously, please let me know if you are still interested.

**Collateral Damage**

**Chapter 3: Wreckage**

**Saitou 1879**

Knock.

Knock.

Saitou looked up as his door inched open. "I'm busy."

"Husband?" Tokio stepped in looking unsure. "Husband, I am most sorry to disturb you."

Saitou froze staring as Tokio stepped hesitantly into his office. As usual, she looked beautiful, more so now that she was only a few feet away. He wrenched his eyes down to the paperwork that littered his desk. "Tokio, I am busy."

"I understand husband."

He hated that she called him that. He liked hearing her say his name, but the time for such things had passed years ago. Since Echigo, she only called him husband, and he long ago gave up the right to ask for anything from her. All he could expect was her tolerance.

"I came to ask for a small increase in the allowance for the boys." She stepped closer. "You are busy at work, so I have enrolled them in a school that will teach them the basics of swordsmanship until you have time to teach them yourself."

Saitou nodded. "Of course."

And now someone else was doing his duty as a father. Not surprising. It was only right that she find another man to step in to teach his children things that he was unfit to. It was more surprising that she hadn't found someone years ago. He had expected her to leave him when he had told her of the move to Tokyo, or at the very least tell him no. He hadn't even found a suitable place for his family to stay, instead, when she had shown up, he had taken the first house he'd found available. Somehow it seemed fitting that the house was a wreck. He dug in his desk and pulled out a purse of money and placed it on the front edge of the desk.

"Kamiya is a delightful teacher. I am sure that she will teach our children the basics of swordsmanship well." Tokio smiled happily picking up the money.

"Kamiya." Saitou felt his eye twitch. There were hundreds of swordsmen in Japan, maybe even thousands ranging from Himura's old master who still haunted a mountain top outside of Kyoto making pottery to young men who had never seen a day of battle in their lives and she chose…

"Yes, Karou Kamiya." Tokio still smiled. "I met her yesterday in the market with her friends Yahiko…"

Twitch.

"Kenshin…"

Twitch, twitch.

"and Sanosuke."

Twitch, twitch, twitch.

"I think they will be good influences for the boys."

Snap. The pen he had been clutching broke in half sending a fine spray of ink across the paper he had been filling out and his desk. He hastily dropped the broken shards and took out a piece of blotting paper to clean up the mess.

"I trust your judgment." Saitou managed to grind out through gritted teeth.

"Thank you, husband." Tokio bowed. "Will you be home this evening?"

Saitou looked pointedly at the pile of papers that sat on the front corner of his desk. "I have work to do."

Tokio bowed again. "Sorry. I should have noticed. I shall see you when you are off work then."

Saitou kept his eyes on his papers until she left, bowing one more time. As the sound of her footsteps wound through the station to the goodbyes of his coworkers, he sat back staring at the place where she had stood. She'd never invaded his workplace before and part of him was suspicious that she chose to do it now, especially to inform him that she had hired that tanuki girl to teach swordsmanship to his children.

Then, he shrugged and went back to work. It didn't matter. If she wanted to play games, she could. It had little to do with him. His place was to stay out of her way and enjoy the fact that she still was tolerating him to be her husband. She could do better. Perhaps she would find a worthy playmate if she kept stayed around Himura. Shinamori was in town, and while the man was a bit young, not to mention far below Tokio's level of cunning, the match wasn't bad. He was well off and after that business with Shishio, he had settled down to a quiet respectability. Maybe one of Himura's friends in the government would suit her better, though. Martial skills were unnecessary in this new age, as was bravery, intelligence, and honor. Perhaps Tokio would be better off with a Meiji husband who would keep her safe and living in the lifestyle she had been born to. Instead of living in the rundown ruin he had provided her with, she could be in one of those new, European houses that had become the newest fashion. She'd be able to wear silks again, eat delicate foods, and maybe someday…he wouldn't miss her.

**Saitou 1870**

The guard gave one last smirk and slammed the iron bound door shut. Mako, one his cellmates slid down the wall and landed with a thump on the floor. Hiro sat down next to him and wrapped his arms around his legs. It was winter and for another night they had only themselves and the threadbare rags to keep themselves warm.

"I thought… he…he said I won…." Mako shuddered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and looking like he was going to vomit.

"They lie." Saitou watched from his place next to the heavy beams of the door as the group in the other cell scrambled to get under the wool blanket the guard had tossed them.

Mako didn't reply, instead rushing over to the small pail that served as their chamber pot to empty his stomach. Hiro shook his head and pulled his legs against himself tighter as the other man retched. Silence filled the cell. Down the hall someone was moaning softly in between sobs and soft whimpers.

It was the guards' newest game. Whoever sucked the best on the guard's cock got the prize. The "winner" of the game got a blanket and food for themselves and their cellmates. The losers got nothing, no blanket, no food. Seeing that they spent the day out in the snow with little in the way of appropriate clothing and less in the way of food, only to come back to their frigid cells wet, exhausted, and starved, it was only a matter of time until the cold or starvation killed them. The blanket game was, underneath the perversion, deadly earnest.

Mako had volunteered to be the one from their cell. Hiro had turned away, glancing uncertainly between Mako and the guard that had come to see if their cell wanted to play the game. Saitou had met the guard's sneer with a blank look. He'd learned that look after a few weeks of getting "taught a lesson in manners" by the guards when he had shown his disgust over some of the other "games" the guards had come up with. Those weeks had made him realize that Okita had been the lucky one. Lung rot was a far more honorable death then being tied to a post in a stinking side yard where the kitchen dumped its garbage, and where guards would visit to work off the day's frustrations on his body with whips, sticks, or just pelting him with the refuse that was strewn about the place. But seeing the new trend in humiliating, depraved games, he'd gotten off relatively unscathed back then.

"I can't…" Mako gulped as he sat back. "I just can't. Not again."

Saitou nodded still watching the hall. He'd like to have said that he didn't blame the man. He'd like to have said something along the lines that he had been surprised that Mako had volunteered in the first place, so his not wanting to repeat the performance was fine. He would have like to say that they could do without the guard's benevolence and generosity. But he couldn't and as he looked to Hiro, he realized that the other man wasn't going to say any of those things either. They weren't the people that they had once been. Mako wasn't a small country daimyo anymore than Hiro was still an aspiring priest at a shrine or Saitou was a Shinsengumi. They had become other beings. He couldn't say people. No. They had stopped being people the moment they had passed through the gates to Echigo prison. Even animals had more worth than they had. He was being liberal even with the word being, thing had a more truthful ring to it. Maybe someday, if he survived this, he might become a being, maybe even a person again, but for now…

Hiro leaned his forehead against his up-drawn knees. "We'll take turns."

**Tokio 1879**

_Well that could have gone better._ Tokio flopped inelegantly into the rickshaw and vaguely hoped that she'd be able to wrench her pregnant self out of it again when she got home. _The most I got was a broken pen and a few eye twitches. Well, it's still early in the game. I've got time._

It had also been good to see him. She hadn't realized just how badly she'd missed him until she opened the door and saw him look up at her. Until then, she'd fooled herself that she was annoyed at him, played with the notions of getting him back for his absence, even considered in her darkest moments of packing and leaving. But watching him…

Where had her Saitou gone? He'd looked so… trapped, almost frightened when she'd stepped in. She'd wanted to reach out to him, step around the desk and run her fingers across his face, sooth him as she had once been able to, before the fall of the shogunate. She'd wanted him to come home with her so she could rub the stiffness out of his muscles while teasing him about something, anything so that his eyes would glimmer and his mouth would curl. She wanted to tug him out from behind the desk and go walking with him as he told her about his day until the unhappiness that hung around him blew away in the breeze. She wanted to go find Tsutomo and put him in his father's lap and say, "See here is your son. You have another on the way. Come home. We need you."

But she knew that was wrong and after years of carefully stepping around him trying to not upset the delicate balance of their life, she had to take the risks she hadn't dared to. She had to do something to get Saitou back. If she didn't, she would lose him. She weighed the purse and looked off to where the dojo was. She only had tonight to get the boys ready then tomorrow she could put things into play.

First though, she had to do something about getting them ready. The source of her problems came into view as the rickshaw came to a halt in front of the lovely mansion that Saitou had procured for them. She dragged herself wearily to her feet, paid the driver who was looking at the crumbling, decaying, horror she had been consigned to as if a ghost was about to come out and attack, and waddled herself up the uneven stone path, through the leaning, weathered gate, and through the front door that shrieked like a dying soul as she pushed it open.

The house was a wreak. It looked like the original owners had tried to blend a traditional house with a Western house and failed miserably. The roof, a Wester style tile, leaked and creaked ominously when certain walls were touched. The floors were wooden and weather beaten with graying boards that were both splintery and in places decayed. Shoes had be worn at all times and if one of them was careless enough to use good manners and take them off, they soon paid with multitudes of splinters and sometimes loss of blood. The outside walls were falling apart, with gaping holes in the paneled wood work and shoji doors with shattered supports that rattled and fell in even a mild wind. The inner walls were even worse. They had been made of lathe and plaster which had stained and cracked, leaving gaping holes. The only ones that seemed to like them were the rats that scampered through them and gnawed at the wood at night. She didn't even want to consider the few windows that were both small and broken.

Saitou couldn't have found a worse house if he had searched all of Japan.

The nurse, Kuni, that she had hired rushed to her the second she managed to push the door shut. "The fire went out again!" The woman was covered in ash and her hair was hanging askew of its once neat tie. "I swear I had it lit! I swear it, then when I came back to start cooking it was out."

Tokio wasn't surprised. The kitchen had the infallible ability to extinguish all forms of fire in the fire pit. It also had the distinction of having many, many Western style cupboards with shelves that slanted steeply to the left, right, front, or back. The only thing that even somewhat worked in it was a western style ice box that had to be supplied with expensive ice every two days that melted into a small stream that meandered through the dirt floor of the kitchen.

Tokio didn't even bother trying to calm the girl. She just pulled some coins out of the purse Saitou had just handed her and gave them to the girl. "Go to the noodle house and pick up a meal for all of us."

Glad to escape, Kuni ran off leaving Tokio, who made her way down the dismal hall, past the broken doors leading to rooms with shattered floors, to the two small rooms in the back that were still usable. Her two boys were crouched together giggling over a couple of carved wooden horses that they had racing up and down the graying floor boards.

"Have you bathed yet?" Tokio already knew the answer, but she felt it was somehow traditional that they go through this ritual.

"Momma, the bathhouse is haunted." Tsutomo looked up at her with a pout that she was sure would one day become just like his father's disgusted scowls. "It's scary in there."

Eiji nodded solemnly. "Can't we take a bath in the morning?"

"It is better to take a bath now." Tokio said her expected part of their ritual, but tonight she had extra ammunition that might inspire them to actually go out to the tipsy shack that pretended to be a bathhouse and get clean. "That way we can leave earlier for your lessons at the Kamiya dojo."

The toys were abandoned as the two boys tossed them aside and raced past her to get clean quickly. The echoing sounds of thudding feet, creaking wood, and shrieks of shock as delicate skin met icy water followed her as she made her way carefully down the hall to the kitchen, hoping she might cajole a little hot water for tea out of the reluctant fire.

She had a little luck and by the time the boys pulled their shivering, frozen selves in, she had a pot of tea steeping. "Hurry and get dressed. Dinner will be here soon and I have some tea made."

She listened carefully until both children were in dressing before pulling the small tea cups down from their precarious perch on a tipsy shelf. She carefully lifted her kimono and stepped across the muddy brook to get to the ice box hoping that there might be something to ward off hunger until the nurse got back. She only found a block of tofu and a few wilted radishes.

"Momma, I'm clean." Tsutomo came loping towards her through the mud. "I'm hungry. When is Kuni bringing food?"

She sighed at his now dirty feet and ruffled his hair. "Soon, here have some tea."

Eiji came in a few moments later being careful not to step in their homemade stream. "Can't we have hot water? It's getting cold and it would be really great if we could have a hot bath."

Tokio handed him a cup of tea. "Not until we get the ofuro fixed. With it sitting on the ground, we can't light a fire under it."

Eiji, having become used to such small luxuries as a hot bath, home cooked food, walls that doubled as windows, and floors that didn't attack feet, grumbled as he sipped his tea. "We should do something about this place."

Tokio nodded. "Good idea. We'll begin tomorrow after your class. We can start with…" She tapped her finger against her chin. She'd have liked to start with the roof, but she was too clumsy and heavy to be of any help and she was not going to send the children up there. She could hire someone to do that though, and perhaps she and the children could do other jobs. "We'll start with the walls."

She was met with two identical looks of disgust.

"We can pick up the paper and some wood on the way home tomorrow." She ignored the looks and sipped her tea.

"Momma, can't we just go home?" Tsutomo had asked that same question every night since they had stepped into this house.

"We are home." Tokio had carefully suppressed the comment she could have easily made that Saitou wanted them here. First, she didn't want her son blaming his father, and second, she wasn't entirely convinced that Saitou did want them there. The house was such a disaster that she couldn't help but wonder if it was Saitou's message to her to leave.

"I want to go home." Tsutomo wasn't ready to give up yet.

"Well, perhaps you should go to bed then." She frowned at him. "Maybe in the morning you will appreciate what you have a bit more."

Her son lapsed into a sulky silence leaving Eiji twitching nervously at his side. She knew that Eiji shared her son's opinion, but still retained enough good manners to not speak about it. However, it was more obvious to the boy that there was something definitely wrong with the situation. Tsutomo could only understand that the house wasn't a good house. Eiji could read in more, that the house was not only a bad house, that they were alone in the bad house, that Saitou had provided the house, and that Saitou was the one who was never in the house with his wife, son, and the child he had taken in.

After another cup of tea being sipped in Tsutomo's unrelenting sulking, the two boys went back to the back room to continue the game with the horses. It was getting dark out and Kuni had still not arrived back with dinner. Tokio wasn't entirely surprised. The girl had probably taken the money as her severance pay and ran home. It had happened with an almost depressing regularity.

She got up and coaxed the fire to light again and made some rice for her and the boys. It wasn't much, but it would keep them quiet for the evening. Tomorrow, she'd pick up some vegetables and perhaps a fish for dinner when they bought the paper and wood. She could also ask around to see if there were any laborers that could repair the roof and maybe find a new nurse. After that, she could come home, cook dinner, repair a wall or two, get the boys cleaned, fed, and in bed.

She could do it.

After all, no one else would.

Author Notes

**Echigo Prison**: I looked for something about Echigo Prison and found nothing useful as far as architecture goes. I am using what I hope to be at least something close, which is an old Korean prison I saw. I could claim that I am also using RK, especially Sano's stay in Saitou's jail, but that didn't give me enough to really work with, but it did confirm some aspects or construction. Prison doors were made out of really thick wood (maybe bamboo in RK) that was bolted together to form a cage like structure for the front of the cell and the door. The prison I saw had an iron bound door that separated the cells from the guard room. The floor was made from rock, and the windows, if they had any, would be tiny. Things I did find in _Daughter of the Samurai_ were: that Echigo was known for very, very deep snow; political prisoners tended to end up there; there was a high death rate at the prison even after the "reform" period that Japan's prisons went through during the Meiji era; and that family members looking for imprisoned loved ones would often come through Echigo province searching for their lost and get absorbed into the area.

**Daimyo**: A daimyo was a lord of a region. While some held quite a bit of power, I noticed in Daughter of a Samurai that the country daimyos had little power beyond their immediate township. It seemed like the daimyo (who was the father of the author of the book) was little better than a hereditary figurehead that had a bit more money than his fellows. His children, while respected, still ran around town, bought candy in stores, and seemed little different from normal kids. The family seemed more trapped by their roles than they benefited from them.


	4. Days

**Collateral Damage**

**Chapter 4: Days**

* * *

**Tokio 1879**

Tokio decided that there was a great difference between the art that Saitou performed so casually and the exercises that lead to that art. Saitou and Okita had made swordsmanship look like a delicate, deadly dance that one could perform at a half second notice with grace and precision. As much as she liked Karou, she was coming to the unavoidable conclusion that she was no where near the skill level or ability of even the most inept of the Shinsengumi, much less masters like Saitou or Okita. She was however enthusiastic.

"Yes, like that." Karou clapped as Tsutomo placed his little hands on the small piece of bamboo that had to be unearthed from a storehouse. It seemed that Karou had never had such a tiny student and wasn't entirely prepared. That the tiny student was also cute, vicious, and cunning still hadn't fully sunk into Karou's mind yet. "Very good."

Eiji, who had received at least a few basics, probably from his brother, was already roving around getting used to his new bokkon by whacking small flowers, tall stems of grass, and other dangerous botanical enemies. She had already made a point of telling both boys that all practicing would have to be done at the dojo. While she felt that the overgrown jungle that passed as a garden could do with quite a bit of whacking, she had a distinct feeling that Tsutomo would not keep his sword activities out of the house and she didn't feel like being whacked by her little wolf cub was the preferred way of greeting the day.

"You should not worry. Karou-dono is a fine teacher, that she is." Kenshin had come and sat down with her brining a pot of tea. She was taking note that he was staying far away from both anything to do with teaching and her children, which showed he had good sense. "She will do a good job teaching them the basics."

Tokio nodded, not missing the little flicks of the red haired man's eyes towards the gate, obviously waiting for Saitou to come and assert his rights to teach his own children. Once, years ago, he would have been right, but Kenshin had not really been around Saitou. He didn't know that it was far more likely that Saitou was purposefully on the other side of town.

"Oh, I'm not worried about that. I'm worried that my house might not survive." She waved one hand towards the boys. "They have so much energy and a house is such a fragile thing."

He gave her a gentle smile that showed no true understanding of what she had just said so she lowered her opinion just a notch. "They are good boys. I'm sure it will be fine, that I am."

Tokio sighed and leaned a bit closer to the man, pointing covertly to her wolf pup. "See him?"

Kenshin nodded, watching Tsutomo finally get the idea of how to hold a sword.

"That's Saitou in miniature. In a couple of months, he'll probably be gatotsuing everything in sight." She shook her head. "My house is already in ruins. By the end of the year, we'll be living in the garden."

Kenshin gave a few half hearted chuckles until he noticed she was serous. "I'm sure that Saitou will keep him in check."

Tokio turned away. "Don't count on that. Saitou is very busy."

Kenshin eyed the little wolf more carefully. "I'll talk to Karou-dono."

"Hey, you really live in a ruin?" Sanosuke came lazing around the corner of the dojo. "Thought that creepy cop could do better than that."

"Sano!" Kenshin frowned slightly at his friend. "Tokio-dono does not need to hear you speak like that about Saitou, that she does not."

The younger man rubbed the back of his head and nodded. "Yeah, sorry. I kinda don't like him. He put a sword through my shoulder and well…"

Tokio nodded. She had heard the story from Karou and while she disapproved of Saitou wandering about casually attacking people with a sword, she could also tell there was more to the story than either of them were telling or perhaps even knew. There were hundreds of ways Saitou could have forced Kenshin to fight, but he chose to attack an opponent that was hardly even a threat. That he drew a sword when he could have put the young man down with his bare hands was even more suspicious. Something else had happened in that brief encounter. Tokio considered a second then sighed. "Yes, the house is in very poor condition. Saitou didn't have time to find a house when he was assigned here, so we took what was available."

Out in the practice yard, Karou had the boys swinging their swords up and down. "Hold the tip up a bit more, Eiji. That's it, good."

"I am going to hire a man to help with repairs." Tokio nodded to the boys. "We will try to help, but I am not sure how we will do."

"When does…" Sano looked uneasily around. "Well, when does Saitou get home?"

Tokio keeping her eyes on the boys and a fond smile on her face gave a seemingly careless shrug. "Late. He often misses dinner."

Sano shuffled near her. She could practically feel him radiate impatience and hesitation. Keeping her focus on the boys, she tumbled what little she knew about him around in her head. He was young and she could tell he was also unfocused. The man had problems with self discipline, didn't like to conform, and often acted before thinking. From the way Kenshin acted around him, the young man was also friends with the former hitikori. He also was attacked by Saitou, which considering his other personality traits, could have been instigated by Sano trying to attack first. However, she also didn't believe the young man was in anyway a threat to her or the boys. He reminded her of someone...

"…just what kind of work do you want done?" Sano asked hesitantly.

She turned and smiled up at him, then blinked…Harrada. The boy looked like Harrada. They had the same hair, the same shape to the eyes, the same lanky build, and even the same face. The two could have been father and son. She hadn't been as close to Harrada as she had been with Okita, but the few times she had met him, she had found him to be rather nice. He'd been a good man.

She tipped her head thoughtfully then with a mental nod found a nice niche in her plan for him. "I was planning on hiring someone to fix the roof."

Sanosuke shuffled. "I could do that."

Kenshin made an odd sound and nearly toppled over. "Sano, are you feeling well. Perhaps you should sit down."

There was more shuffling and Sano made an embarrassed sound. "Look, I own Tae some money and if I don't pay my tab, I don't get to eat."

"But you don't want Saitou to find out." Tokio gave him a reassuring smile. "I doubt he would care as long as the work was done."

She didn't think he'd even notice that the work was done. She could probably have the house razed to the ground and build a geisha house in its spot and Saitou would never notice unless one of the geisha's got into legal trouble or politicians started visiting. He'd probably come to investigate, mumble a greeting to her, then flee the premises. She could grow rich and famous if she just let the criminals that Saitou hounded know that all they had to do was rent a room in her home and they'd be safe to pursue their nefarious deeds.

Sano huffed a bit, still having doubts, but the lure of money kept him tethered. "When do you want to start?"

Tokio smiled, "How about tonight after the boy's lesson. You could come with us to the market and help pick up the materials."

**Saitou 1870**

They were on the road outside of the prison doing maintenance. In reality, the road was fine, but the freezing weather and melting slush was too perfect an opportunity for the guards to pass up to watch the inmates to labor in the most miserable conditions possible while not having to travel more than a few paces from warmth and hot tea.

"My wife," One overly thin man that Saitou knew but didn't know was talking in almost a daze, "she had the most beautiful hair, long, silky…it looked like nightfall. She'd comb it before bed. She'd sit on the edge of the futon and comb and comb. I loved watching her."

Saitou had stopped learning people's names months ago. It made things easier to not know. Nearly everyone died here, and if he didn't know their names, then they were just bodies, nameless bodies, frozen in death, dressed in rags, hauled out of their cells by other nameless people, and incinerated with the rest of the garbage. When they had names, then it was someone, a person.

His present companion wouldn't last much longer. He was showing all the signs that Saitou had learned to be wary of: the aimless mumbling of happier times, the unfocused stare, the clumsy movement of his arms and legs, the sunken eyes, the pinched lips. The man would drift to sleep and not wake up, if one of the guards didn't smash his skull in for not working fast enough.

"A blue kimono…she liked blue, even out of season." The man continued mumbling. "She would look so pretty in it with her hair down like a girl's."

Saitou continued to shovel wet, icy sludge from the road as other's patched nonexistent holes. His cell mates were down the line racking gravel and trimming small bushes that were no threat to even the laziest of pedestrians who might amble over to the prison for a visit. The guards holding steaming tea cups from their recent visit to the guard booth, stood eyeing them with grins on their faces. Saitou hoped that their present level of misery was enough to entertain them, otherwise the likelihood of one of them being chosen to make an example of was high.

He kept his head down and his shovel moving in quick neat movements. If he didn't look threatening, if he didn't look interesting, if he just kept working in a steady pace, someone else would become the target. A beating in summer was bad, but one in winter was deadly. The road they were working on had more than a few bones from winter time examples who had just been rolled to the side where the animals could dispose of them.

"We'd walk along the river and she'd smile." The man wasn't really talking to him. He was weaving his memories around himself as a shelter from the reality of what now was.

Saitou didn't blame him. He did it himself at times reliving his time with his friends, how Tokio looked as she did some task or another, what it had been like to sit by a stream watching the water flow past, how he'd felt as he walked the streets of Kyoto dressed in warm, soft clothes. He'd also lost himself in the dark parts of his memory, replaying each scene, trying to find some magical formula to undo what had obviously gone wrong. It was pointless, useless. Reality always came back to face him.

"You. Hurry up!" One of the guards had noticed the mumbling and slow work of the other man, but they didn't seem inclined to come over and do much about it.

Saitou moved away a bit, getting out of the man's area. Others were doing the same. No one wanted to be near possible trouble. The man could easily take down one or two more with him if the guards stirred themselves into action. The man didn't notice and Saitou busied himself scraping a nonexistent bump out of the road.

"Move yourself, old man!" The guard yelled again looking a bit perkier.

Saitou scanned quickly around noticing that one of the wardens was coming up the road. He made himself look busier, knowing that the guards would try to impress their superior either with a hard working crew or with a quick example of discipline. He preferred to be on the side of the hard working crew, so he industriously started digging a rock out of the road that he'd managed to uncover. As the warden drew closer, the guards surreptitiously dumped their tea and wadded into the prisoners.

"Get working! We aren't on a holiday." One cuffed him harshly, making him stumble, but he wasn't the main target.

"You, we've warned you before." Another guard grabbed the mumbler by one too skinny arm pulling him out of line and towards the center of the road where the warden would have the best view of the disciplinary measures the guards were going to undertake.

Saitou and the others stepped farther away keeping their heads down, not needing to see the sight that was being played out before them. They'd all seen it before, the cries for mercy, the arc a whip curved into as it flashed through the air, the way flesh seemed to magically part, the gloating grins on the faces of the guards, the broken person falling to the road in a jumble of limbs.

The warden, having paused to watch, nodded, "Good work, men. Keep it up."

Saitou

Saitou walked down the street with Chou lazing at his side. He'd received a tip that some of the local magistrates were letting a select few criminals out to work for them, probably to advance their political careers. Normally, Saitou would have let some of the others deal with such a nuisance problem, but the addition of a few rather questionable deaths of judges and police officers had perked his interest. The latest questionable death had been of a patrol officer who had been discovered with his throat cut in an alley behind a less then reputable tea house. Seeing that the man had been assigned to the other side of Tokyo and he had normally patrolled the area adjoining the magistrate's neighborhood, Saitou was curious.

"Hey, look fried tofu." Chou sauntered over to the small street vendor. "Looks good."

Saitou kept walking. If things got interesting, he didn't want a belly of bad tofu weighing him down. That didn't stop Chou from grabbing some to chomp as they walked. Citizens were bustling through the street in a small rush. It was starting to get dark and most were probably thinking thoughts of home, family, and warm meals. Tired women were rushing with bundles under their arms anxious to get dinner cooked. Children whined in shrill complaints as harried parents herded them past food stalls that had been erected to tempt evening crowds.

Saitou ignored all of it winding through the passersby only noting those he deemed to be possible threats. The crowds got scruffier as the approached the tea house. People's faces became a bit more lean, their clothes lacked the latest patterns, hems were more worn, and their movements less confident. The tea house itself was rundown with poorly patched shoji screens and a battered sign. The alley behind showed more use than a normal alley would with a defined path from the tea house's back door to the street. Garbage had been pushed in piles to the side with the officer's body laying half buried under a fall of rotting vegetables.

"You'd think they'd have cleared things up." Chou stood behind him still chomping on the tofu.

Satiou ignored him looking around the scene. It was obvious that the body had been moved. The people that had done it hadn't been particularly careful leaving scuff marks on the stained pavement from having dragged the corpse from the street. Saitou followed the path back to the street looking for clues.

From the few marks next to the path, he guessed that at least two men had moved the body. One had worn western style boots and the other more common geta. He couldn't entirely rule out a third, but from the careless way they had handled the body, he doubted a third had been present. The body had probably been moved last night and hidden under the vegetables. Workers had found it and in typical fashion had ignored it, not wanting to get involved. Only the screaming of a hysterical child had finally drawn the attention of the authorities.

"Do you know him?" Saitou called back to where Chou was standing still cramming tofu into his face.

"How should I know?" Chou shrugged.

"Why don't you go look at him." Saitou estimated that the boot wearer was nearly as tall as he was and the geta wearer was only slightly less.

"I gotta look at a dead cop?" Chou grumbled gulping down the last of his meal. "What for?"

"So you can see if he looks familiar." Saitou traced the two foot trails back to the street where they stopped. A cart or some kind of wheeled vehicle had been used to transport the body, unless the two had been lugging it through the streets on their shoulders and never got noticed.

There was a rustling sound behind him as he contemplated the likelihood of various vehicles being used in this neighborhood without causing comment. A large coach would cause a stir, but a small on, or even a rickshaw could pass through the streets easily.

"Nah, doesn't look like anyone I know." Chou called back.

Saitou glanced over his shoulder and with one last measuring look at the street turned walking back to the body. Cho had flipped the man over, but otherwise hadn't touched anything. Neither apparently had the killers. The man was still dressed neatly in his uniform with only a small wound at the temple to show what had killed him.

"Low caliber bullet. Close range." Saitou muttered looking at the wound. "No exit. No burning of the skin."

The man's uniform was stained from the vegetables and other refuse, but Saitou still noted a few things before turning away. The uniform didn't have much in the way of handy mud or suspicious plant material lingering on it, but the officer's gloves had been missing. He also had a stain covering the front of his uniform from his neck down his chest and spreading across his right side. While it might be no more than spillage from the garbage, it was something to investigate farther. He looked around at the things that had been used to cover the man: boxes, some old rotten radishes, tea grounds, a few broken sake bottles, some rotten tofu, and the remnants of a shoji screen. He searched around for anything else, but beyond rat droppings and a broken tea cup, he failed to find anything else.

Standing, he glanced at the basic layout of the alley way and then walked back to the street. "Chou, go back to headquarters and have them remove the man. I need to go check a few things."

He didn't have to watch Chou to know the man was standing weighing the benefits of heading back to the station against the bother of walking all that way.

After a few seconds of deliberation, Chou made a small put-upon sound. "Okay, okay. Fine."

Saitou took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it as he exited the alley and turned towards the more affluent sector of town. It was a good day. He could probably be busy for weeks because of this. He'd have to remember to say a proper thank you to the dead officer, maybe donate money to his widow of funeral expenses. Yes, this was a lovely day.

~*~*~*~*

Notes:

**Corpses**: Bodies are and were generally burned because of religious beliefs (mainly Buddhist) and lack of space for graves. I found a few articles about bodies needing to be whole so that the spirit of the person will be whole in the afterlife, and the belief that the dead will haunt the living at times. The concept of dying without repaying _on_ is big and if _on_ is not paid, the spirit of the person may well linger behind. A son's duty is to repay the unrepayable _on_ that he has to his parents, family, friends, and loved ones in general. This involves being there to bury them in a fit manner. If one dies early, they cannot repay _on_ so are dying in debt. I know it doesn't help the story directly, but it is an interesting concept.

**Kimono**s: Kimonos often have different colors for different seasons. Much like our grandparents not wanting to wear white in winter, so the Japanese had colors to wear or not wear according to what time of year it was. Some of the color combinations were quite intricate. In _The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, _it describes how the many, many layers of kimonos had to each had a specific color that had to be worn in a certain way so that the under-layers of the kimono would show through the upper layers to produce the required color effect.

**Hair**: Women in the Tokagawa age tended to have their hair elaborately coifed, coiled, and styled when their finances permitted. When the Meji took power, women started to actually cut their hair like western men and to wear men's clothing. This caused a bit of an outrage, but as it generally does, it passed.


	5. Crumbling Apart

**AN:** I noticed that part of Kenshin's dialog was clipped at the end of Tokio's section, so I had to reload this to fix it. I do apologize for the wait for this. I promise this will be finished, but due to personal problems, things are going to be slow. Thank you for your patience.

Collateral Damage

Chapter 5: Crumbling Apart

* * *

**Saitou 1879**

His shoulder ached. He'd bumped it against the back of the coach on his way to meet with the district commander and now it ached like old, bone-deep memories. He'd tried ignoring it. He'd tried stretching during the few private moments he'd had between rushing from one department to another and one station to another to fulfill the mindless bureaucrats that had decided that he, and he alone, was capable of estimating the strength of Tokyo's defenses if another Shishio raised his bandaged head to peer greedily at the esteemed citizens of the capital city. Now that he was back in his office, he tried rubbing it, trying to remember if that shoulder had received a particularly deep wound that might be resurfacing to haunt him. He usually managed to keep track of these things but lately, with all the mindless drudgery and his ongoing investigation into the officer's death, small things were beginning to blur.

_You're going to be the death of me. _Okita laughed in the back of his head. _I worry about you more than you do._

_And look where that worry got you._ Saitou shrugged the shoulder one last time and decided to ignore it. _Coughing your lungs onto your lap._

Saitou pulled the file containing the information about his investigation from his desk drawer, frowning as he noticed that Chou had been pawing through it. Usually the broomhead had enough sense to leave things in the desk alone, but lately, he'd started frisking through it when he thought he'd be able to get away with it. Mostly, the moron had taken a few pen nubs and an old fashion ink stone that had somehow migrated around the entire office before setting up home in the back of one of his drawers where it had marked up his papers with odd black scratches. Chou's conscripting it as a paperweight had given him the opportunity to make a messy example of his subordinate as well as be rid of the menace to his paperwork.

As he flipped through the file to check to make sure all was where it should be, he contemplated what he'd inflict on Chou to ensure the sanctity of his desk. Since nothing seemed to be missing, only shuffled out of order, he decided that the idiot could patrol the neighborhood the dead officer had once walked, only at night. He glanced out the window at the dark clouds and how the wind was picking up enough dirt and grit off the street to make a few pedestrians wince and cover their eyes. He decided that tonight, which he knew was Chou's gambling night, would be a perfect time for the excursion.

They hadn't found much in the way of who had killed the officer, but the suspects were piling up. First, nearly every storekeeper and inhabitant of the area would have liked to kill the man, Hase Akihito Kanenobu. The officer had placidly walked his beat and collected "gifts" from the people he'd been there to protect. The "gifts" had ranged between nearly crippling money to free food, to an occasional night with a comely daughter or in one case a young wife, who later killed herself in shame. Those that had been so ungenerous as to refuse to give the officer a "gift" had suffered bad luck in the form of muggings, fires, and robberies. Second, many of his fellow officers had more than slight cause to wish a short life on Hase. The man had, in his own quiet way, backstabbed, schemed, and robbed his way up from an awkward recruit into being the lazy, waste of labor that had patrolled a quiet, dull neighborhood that had supplied him with food, women, and money. Third, Hase had taken his "gift" money and went gambling. He had the same luck as Kenshin's dimwitted rooster and regularly lost it in drunken, dice sprees. He'd owed money to numerous people including some Yakuza, which had recently been clamoring for repayment. Lastly, Hase's own family wouldn't have minded his permanent absence from their lives. He'd managed to put one wife in the grave after a highly suspicious accident involving a tumble off a remote road that the woman had no reason to be on. He'd also scandalized the rest by stealing money from his own mother, who had trustingly let her eldest son "put his father's affairs in order" which resulted in all money being removed from her and reinvested in sake, dice, and the occasional geisha. His three younger brothers had to gather their destitute, grieving mother up and move her away from her home, which had been sold by Hase to cover the cost of a vacation to the south. Now, they all considered him a mar on their family's honor and when he had interviewed them they had all looked nearly jubilant at the news of his sudden demise. They had also declined paying any funeral expenses and had suggested that the body just be cremated and dumped into a sewer with the rest of the city's offal, or if that took too much money, just dump him in the sewer and perhaps a few rats would die from indigestion.

With most of Tokyo wanting the man dead, finding who had the opportunity to kill the officer was nearly impossible, and he was still working on how the fool had died and where he had died. That track looked more promising, and it would keep him busy. No matter that the man had been a waste of a good uniform, he had been an officer and it was his duty to make sure that his killer was caught and brought to justice.

**Tokio**

"You live in this?" Sano stood looking up at the roof of the house. "Hell, my place is better."

"That it is," Kenshin blinked as a piece of tile slid off the roof and landed in the garden with a muffled thud. "Perhaps you should stay in the dojo until the …errr…" The wind blew through the trees and a muffled groaning from the house's timbers moaned through the afternoon air. "…house is…" A stray cat screamed. "…fixed?" The redhead took a step back making a small sign to ward off evil that he hoped Tokio didn't notice.

"You can relax." Tokio pretended she hadn't noticed the motion. "I had a priest out to bless the house before I moved in."

"Did he survive?" Yahiko muttered eyeing the tall, looming trees that swayed dead, skeletal arms in the air.

Tokio shrugged nonchalantly, but her eyes glittered as she turned slightly to check on Tsutomo, "Just be careful to not trip over anything in the backyard."

Karou nodded and forced a cheerful smile on her face and scooped up a can of alabaster that Sano had totted from the market. "It won't get fixed if we don't start. So, who wants to help with the walls?"

"I think," Kenshin glanced out of the corner of his eye trying to signal Sano that they needed to retreat and rethink this plan, "that we should, perhaps, begin with…" Sano stood scratching his head and looking speculatively up at the roof and Karou, his backup plan, was already striding into the yard.

"I think we need to check the foundations first." Sano finally sauntered forward. "Let's see if those are solid."

"When did you become a master builder?" Yahiko held his ground in the street.

Sano ignored him and Kenshin, taking a last deep breath, followed him trying to convince himself that the house was not an attempt of Saitou's to kill him in the most humiliating way possible. He did however, consider that he'd carefully test Saitou just to be sure and if the answer to his inquiry was positive, he'd have to give in and fight the man. At least he wouldn't end up buried in Saitou's back yard that way.

Tokio waddled forward trying to keep her balance on the uneven ground and trying futilely to keep Tsutomo and Eji from racing ahead to show off their home to their sword master. She was getting tired. The last few nights had been hard. The noise in and around the house seemed to have multiplied in the last few days with odd creaks, falling tiles, and snapping branches from the dying foliage. Even after carefully checking to make sure all was well, the noise kept her awake. And once awake, she had little to do but lay in the dark and think.

Sano bravely crawled under the house to investigate any stray mamushi and the foundations. "Not bad…not bad, there's a couple of support timbers towards the back that need replacing, but I don't think that will be too much of a problem. What's back there anyways?" Sano's hand emerged from a large floor crack and waved in one direction."

"That's the bedrooms." Eji scampered over to poke his head down another crack to talk to Sano. "What about the kitchen?" He stuck his arm down too. "It's over there."

"Don't see it." Sano's voice got fainter, "Seems to end just about…" A hand stuck up through the floor near the far wall. "…here."

"That's on the ground." Tsutomo, seeing how much fun it was to put body part through the floor stuck his head down next to Eji. "That's why it's muddy."

Tokio calmly walked up the steps and caught her cub and nudged Eji with her foot. "You two need to start sweeping." She put her little wolf down and pointed towards the back of the house. "Go get the brooms."

Seeing the unique fun of the floor being swallowed up by the gloomy prospect of chores, Tsutomo and Eji frowned in unison. Tokio wondered if finding Eji really was that much of an accident and if Saitou had perhaps had a mistress in the country. She wouldn't mind. She'd even celebrate. It would be a sign that her husband at least had paid enough attention to the people around him to notice that, instead of a generic body that had to only be classified as a threat or as ignorable, there was a woman. It would also be a sign that he paid enough attention to his own being enough to recognize that he desired that woman and furthermore, acted on that desire.

_It's sad that Saitou being unfaithful would be a cause to celebrate. It's even sadder that there is no possible chance of it ever happening and I'm upset because of it._

"We need to help Sano!" Eji looked longingly at the hole in the floor.

"Yes, Sano!" Tsutomo nodded firmly to show his unwavering support of Eji's good work ethic.

"Brooms!" Tokio pointed again more firmly and added a glare to emphasize her point.

The boys looked sadly back at the hole and the sounds of Sano muttering to himself about the support timbers, and then with hanging heads trudged to get the brooms. Half way to the brooms they started giggling and pushing each other lightly.

"They really are good boys." Karou came up behind her.

"They try." Tokio rubbed her back. "It's a constant battle for me too, but I figure I can handle Saitou, so how bad could his children be?"

Kenshin, eyeing a particularly suspicious spot of bare ground in the back, turned and looked at Tokio with his lips pressed firmly together and doubt in his eyes.

"He's not that bad." Tokio narrowed her eyes back.

"This one didn't say anything, that I did not." Kenshin turned to look again at the suspicious, grave shaped mound of bare dirt. "I just wanted to ask about the garden."

Tokio shook her head, twisting slightly to ease the ache in her back. "Except for the path to the bathhouse, I don't allow anyone back there."

Kenshin eyed the grave-like patch of dirt. Someone had put a crude marker on it and there were a couple of sticks of incense there. "Errr….about the…." Dark shadows stirred in the underbrush, which, despite his assassin trained senses he could not hear, only see. "…garden. Perhaps while Sano is dealing with the foundation, something could be done about it? It would make cooking much easier when we start to work on the kitchen."

"Good point, Kenshin, but don't worry about food." Karou gave Tokio a cheery smile. "I'll be happy to cook for you at the dojo."

Kenshin gave Tokio an overly cheery smile. "Let's get right on that garden then!"

"Kenshin…" Karou's voice dropped into the imminent whacking zone. "Are you…"

"No, no." Kenshin eyed the backyard. "It is just a shame that such a lovely…" The shadows seemed to grow teeth and snarl at him, "garden is in such a state."

"Well, I still insist that you and the boys eat dinner with us. It's the least I can do." Karou looked bright and determined. "I'll cook you a good fish stew."

Sano, having crawled out from under the house grunted. "She's pregnant. You don't want to kill her do you?"

Karou spun and snarled, but Sano placidly ignored her. "The foundations aren't in bad shape, just a couple of timbers that look like they should be replaced. I can do that tonight and we can work on the walls and roof tomorrow."

"And we can work on the garden while Sanosuke does that." Kenshin, keeping his eyes off both the shadows and the suspicious Karou, bolted toward the back door. "Is there a shed?"

**Tokio 1870**

"Rice for sale. Rice for sale."

"Sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes."

"Fresh fish from the sea! Eat and be strong!"

Tokio walked through the market keeping her head down and her eyes on the ground. Just by the voices, she could tell that someone from the government was present. She could also tell who was working for them. The fish seller, with his confident boasts and relatively fresh fish worked for them, trading information for money, trade goods, and leniency. The others, with their wilted vegetables and straggly potatoes sounded quavery and frightened. Whoever the government had sent had sent a ripple of fear through their tiny village.

"Fresh eels! Butter fish!"

"Tofu for sale. Tofu."

She slipped quietly to the rice seller, where she exchanged a few hard earned coins for a weeks ration of food, and as merchants' voices started to stutter to a halt, slid into a tiny niche between the blacksmith and the bakers. It wasn't much, but it gave her enough shelter that unless someone was carefully searching for her, she'd remain unnoticed.

More voices pattered into silence. The few people that had ventured into their poor market started hurriedly leaving the area. The merchants, trapped by their wares, cowered, torn between fleeing and staying with their only means of keeping their families alive through the coming winter.

"Come neighbors, fresh fish!"

The man who came into the market would have been considered scum, once, long ago, in another lifetime. His clothes were greasy and stained. His hair was long and unkempt. On his belt he carried a knife and a western style pistol. However, it wasn't long ago. It was now and he was swaggering through the market with a sneer on his face and a superior swagger in his step. As low as he might have ranked on the social scale in a finer place like Kyoto, here he was a prince.

"What, no one buying fish?" The greasy man laughed and grabbed a nearby merchant who had been trying to sell second hand clothes. "You, buy some fish."

"Sir, I…" The man wiggled, looking beseechingly at his captor. "I…I have no money. P..p…please."

"Did I say you had a choice? Buy fish!"

The man was flung over to land in a heap at the fish monger's feet where he cowered. The government man laughed harshly and looked around for more customers. The sweet potato seller with a whimpering cry bolted and ran, leaving his produce. The rice seller glanced around, as if searching for support, and hid behind his bales.

The fish monger grinned at his new customer. "A few shrimp for you, my dear man, just the thing to build strength in your body."

The government man, still looking for his next victim, walked over to the clothing seller's meager pile of ratty clothes and pulled out the man's money pouch. "Forget the shrimp." He tossed the bag lightly in his hand weighing the coins. "He needs tuna."

The fish monger smiled.

"Oh, and look. Someone is giving away potatoes." The thug went over and looked at the few worn baskets that held sweet potatoes. "Bah…" He kicked the baskets sending the produce scattering. "…just junk." He stomped on them and turned looking at his remaining choices.

Tokio stepped back further into the niche. She didn't want to see the rest. It was better to remain hidden and silent. The two would tire of their game soon and move on to other towns where the two would bully more people into buying their fish and if anyone dared to protest too much, would find themselves charged with attacking a government official, treason, or some other charge that would end with dead bodies to be buried.

More cries and more desperate pleas came from the market, along with a few sounds of scuffling, grunts, and feet meeting cringing flesh. Tokio closed her eyes.

Thank the spirits, Saitou was not here. She hated to see her wolf drop his head and bow humbly before such people. Part of her died every time some governmental thug showed up to keep track of the last potential threats to the glory of the Meji and Saitou , dressed in rags and so thin her heart hurt, knelt at their feet in submission.

A young woman's voice suddenly cried out from the market. Tokio cringed.

Thank the spirits it wasn't her this time.

* * *

**Research**

**Ink stones**: These are a treasure to have and are actually considered one of the four treasures of a scholar in Chinese tradition. Ink was transported easily in stick form and then could be reconstituted with a bit of water. An ink stone gave the user a small reservoir of water and a place to grind the ink into usable form. The density and hue of the ink could therefore be personalized. Saitou, in his westernized office, probably used the more westernized ink pot that we are more familiar with from such chestnuts as Little House on the Prairie, where ink was liquid and set in a small container to dip a pen into. For a quick look at ink stones try: .org/wiki/Chinese_Inkstone.

**Mamushi:** Are poisonous snakes that are found in a wide variety of places in Japan. They generally will be found where their favorite food is…rodents. They are noted however for their placid disposition though I would personally hesitate to test this for myself. I actually think they are rather pretty, but then again, anything that isn't a Mojave Green Rattlesnake is good in my opinion. .org/wiki/Gloydius_blomhoffii

**Cooking in the garden: **I have seen Kenshin do this in the first episode of the series and Karou does it in another episode, but I can't find any references to it. If anyone knows of one, please let me know.


	6. The Wreak

I am still looking for a beta, so please bear with me.

* * *

**Collateral Damage**

**Chapter 6: The Wreak**

* * *

**Saitou 1879**

With a harsh exhale of startled breath, Saitou jerked awake. His eyes darted around, jittering over the bare walls of his office, the edging around the doors, and the clutter of papers, pens, ink pots, and blotting papers on his desk. His head snapped around to glance behind him then he sprang uncoordinatedly out of his chair to put his back against the wall.

_Calm, calm, calm._ He chanted to himself, trying to banish the feeling of being grabbed, held helplessly vulnerable as something or someone breathed on his neck. But his senses still quivered in alert, registering every creak of settling boards, every flutter of shadows.

_Calm_.

The air of the office seemed full with the scent of blood, his blood. He could nearly taste it on his tongue.

He couldn't stay here. He snatched his katana from its place and his jacket from the back of his chair, trying to ignore the quiver of his hands. He shivered as he reached to open the door then flattened himself against the wall and carefully opened it. The door swung open with a minute squeak that seemed as loud as a scream. He forced himself to stay still, listening to the sounds of the station.

The day shift was over and most of the night officers were now out on patrol. A solitary duty officer and a boy were probably the only ones in this section of the building. He carefully edged out the door and scanned around. The office was covered in gloom. The normally bustling place was now hushed and quiet with only a gas lamp at the front desk lending any form of life to the room. Upstairs, he could hear the rustling of papers as someone thumbed through a report. In the back where there was a tiny table, feet shuffled and the slight tap of chopsticks against wood could be distinguished, probably the boy eating his dinner. He took a second to analyze these sounds for threats before he flickered out to the street and flashed into the shadows of the nearby buildings.

_Calm._

It must have been later than he thought. The streets were only sparsely peopled. A noodle cart with a paper lantern swinging in the slight breeze stood at the corner. Its vendor, half concealed by a cloud of steam served an old man. Farther away, a trio of people, two men and a woman, paused by an inn, inspecting its exterior, debating in soft voices its merits.

He ducked away into an alley that ran behind the street front stores. The smells of rotting garbage and urine wafted around him in vapors as he darted, light-footed, through the gloom. Sounds became more muffled, quieted by thick doors and walls. A husband and wife argued over sweeping their shop. A boy called a question about twine. A honey bucket man cursed a leaky pot. The shadows were thicker here too, but gentler, more comforting. The sharp dangerous lines of the office and the harsh brazen light weren't allowed back here after sundown and only grudgingly accepted during the day. He knew these shadows. They were old friends and would keep him safe.

When he reached the residential area, he paused a moment, his senses shuddering, before he stepped onto the street. An overgrown wintergreen offered sanctuary in its draping branches, so he slipped into its shelter. Its fragrant leaves brushed his shoulders and head in a comforting caress. A dog barked down the street. By its voice, Saitou could tell it wasn't alarmed. More likely it was only a spoiled pet wanting attention. Lingering traces of meals still haunted the street as he ghosted down it, his eyes scanning fence lines, brush, and the sway of shadows nervously.

When he came to the gate, he paused a second before flickering up the walk and through the door. Inside, there were no lights. No smells of cooking lingered in the rooms he searched through in a quicker and quicker pace. Futons were rolled neatly away, but blankets and clothes were missing. The kitchen was stripped bare, except for a few stacks of dusty bowls and tea cups that sat on an unsteady counter.

He slumped against a wall.

_Gone._

_She was gone. _

His breath seemed to shiver in the empty air.

_You knew this would happen…_

_Gone._

**Kamyia Dojo**

"Owwww. It hurts." Tsutomo whined, picking at the medicated plaster that Megumi had just patiently dabbed on his arm.

"Leave it alone." Megumi tapped his hand warningly. "It takes awhile for the sting to go out."

"But it hurts!" Tsutomo scrunched his face into a Saitou like scowl.

"What are you complaining about?" Eiji, his temper frayed by his own plasters, growled. "You only got stung once. I got stung twice."

Appealing to a higher court in the face of his unsympathetic audience, Tsutomo raised his voice and wailed, "Momma, it hurts!"

"Shush." Megumi pulled the little one's hand away from where it was again picking at the plaster. "Your mother isn't feeling well."

"Yeah." Eiji frowned. "She got stung a whole bunch of times. You shouldn't bother her."

Tsutomo's lower lip thrust out belligerently. "I want momma."

"Your mother is asleep. You need to let her get better." Kenshin nudged open the shoji screen, looking at the wolf cub scowling at him a moment before he turned to Megumi. "Dinner will be ready in a few minutes."

The little wolf, intent on taking his displeasure out, sunk him teeth into Megumi's arm as she pulled him onto her lap to hold him still.

The doctor grit her teeth and pried him loose. "I want Tokio-san to remain asleep, but please put something aside for her to eat later so Sano won't devour it all."

Kenshin nodded. Like Eiji and Tsutomo, he had his own small plaster lumps. When the hornet's nest that Sano had knocked loose from the rafters had erupted into a cloud of furious insects, he had been slowed by a potted maple that he'd been lugging to the back garden. He had been swarmed, stung, entangled by a possessed tree, and tripped by a pile of laundry that Tokio had been trying to save from the dust of reroofing before he could put his godlike speed to good use by escaping the flying menaces.

It was all Saitou's fault. He wasn't sure how, but he was sure the wolf planned that whole humiliating episode.

Kenshin walked gingerly down the hall trying to not bump the bite that bothered him the most. It was in a most unfortunate area.

_Saitou's fault. If those hadn't been Saitou's hornets, they would never have flown up my hakima and stung me there. Damn Saitou! He really is a pain in the ass._

Karou, who had been planning on surprising her guests with an old family recipe of chicken- eel stew and was still upset that he had still made dinner despite his…incapacitating….injury, was sitting down on the porch, keeping an ear open for Tokio. "Have you seen Yahiko?" She whispered as he waddled past.

"No. I think he's out by the well. He says he doesn't wish for help, that he most definitely did." Kenshin gave her a bland grin trying not to notice how both of her cheeks had swollen making her look even more like a tanuki.

"He's being silly." Karou muttered. "He really needs to let Megumi look at that sting."

Kenshin hummed noncommittally. "This one needs to get back to the fish before it overcooks."

"You didn't use the eels, did you? I'm still going to make everyone dinner tomorrow" Karou gave a painful but cheery smile. "You will all just adore it!"

Kenshin waddled faster, as if he could somehow escape from the looming meal. For the last week he'd managed to save their guests, but it was only a matter of time. Perhaps, if he did let her cook tomorrow, Tokio would still be recovering from the hornet attack. While he was starting to plot his now quite attractive duel with Saitou, he did not want the wolf to come after him for the loss of his wife and child, not if the recent happenings really were the Shinsengumi's way of evening up thirty year old debts.

"Hey, Kenshin." Sano was sitting scrunched into a corner of the kitchen. "How's everyone doing?"

"Karou-dono looks like a tanuki." Kenshin waddled over to check his fish. "Eiji and Tsutomo only got a couple of stings, though they are complaining. Yahiko might never forgive you, and if he ever marries, he might have some explaining to do. Tokio-dono is sleeping, but Megumi-dono said she should be fine in the morning. She gave her some special tea that Doctor Genkai made that has helped."

"Saitou is going to kill me." Sano pulled his knees tight against his chest. "I ain't kidding, Kenshin. I'm dead." Sano looked doomed. "Man! Honestly Kenshin, I checked yesterday for things like that. It wasn't there then."

Kenshin, not feeling too forgiving since he was already feeling tired and laying down was a painful experience not to mention sitting, frowned gently at his friend, "You need to check more carefully, that you do."

"But I did!" Sano glanced quickly toward the dojo's main gate, checking for rampaging police captains wanting to know why his lovely, beloved, and very pregnant wife was now suffering from hornet stings from a mysteriously appearing hornet's nest. "Why does everyone think I didn't?"

"Because, at heart, you are a lazy slacker?" Megumi stepped into the kitchen and put a tray of used tea cups down on the counter. She nodded sweetly to Kenshin, then put a thoughtful finger to her lips. "Or perhaps we're still remembering other small incidents…like, that grand idea you had in Kyoto that landed you in jail…"

"Or running after Jenea after I said not to." Kenshin mumbled to the fish he was inspecting with tremendous diligence.

"And wasn't there that time that…" Megumi tipped her head and turned to consult Kenshin.

"Fine. Fine." Sano waved his hand. "But, I don't have a death wish. Do you think I don't know that Saitou is going to flay me alive because Tokio-san got stung?"

"I'm sure he won't flay you alive." Megumi snickered as she walked out the door. "As a representative of justice, law, and order, I'm sure he'll kill you first."

Sano moaned and dropped his head to rest on his knees. "That ain't funny, fox. He's going to blame me for this, just you wait."

"I'll bring flowers to your funeral, Sanosuke." Megumi's laugh trailed after her as she went back to check on her patients.

**Chou**

Saitou looked up as his office door opened. He'd come back after his discovery that his life was indeed over, and had done as he always did, bury himself in work. If he didn't think about it, if he just kept his head down and focused on the parade of mindless idiocy that sloshed across his desk, he could pretend that he was still alive.

"Hey, guess what?" Chou stood in his doorway with a smirk on his face. "I found our killer."

"You did." Saitou went back to filling out the report about a petty theft from a fish monger's stall that he had been blessed with.

"Yep. It was that guy with the music place. You know…" Chou made a sawing motion like he was playing violin. "The dead cop guy was sleeping with his daughter and the old man found out and while our boy was walking his beat, drinking his cup of tea, the music guy whacked him with a log, shoved his body into a cart and hauled it away and dumped it." Chou puffed up proudly. "I got a confession and everything."

A part of Saitou's mind ran through that scenario and promptly found enough holes to sink a black ship. An old music teacher managed to kill a police officer that was twice his size with a log that was just handily laying about? The old man then put the officer, who had to be twice his weight, into a cart and pulled that cart across town? The old man then pulled the man out of the cart and dumped him in a back alley? And he did this by himself? Weren't there two sets of footprints? Did the daughter help? Could a music teacher really make this look so…so…professionally done?

But what did it matter to the dead?

He shrugged. "Good work. Fill out the forms and get them on my desk."

Chou's grin faltered. "Good…" He glanced around, checking to see if this was some kind of joke. Saitou couldn't have just said that, could he? "Yeah, right. Okay. Good. I'll get right on that."

Saitou didn't look up. The pen he was writing with kept scratching lightly over the page in front of him with smooth even, unhurried strokes.

"You want to know how I did it?" Chou shuffled nervously, eyeing his boss.

"Put it in the report." Saitou reached out for another form, not even looking up from what he was doing.

Chou shuffled a bit more. "Forms, right, forms. When do you want them."

Scarily, Saitou just shrugged.

"Errr…" A hesitant voice interrupted causing Chou to jerk around to face a pale, ting boy wearing a neatly pressed uniform. "So sorry to interrupt." The boy bowed nervously. "But the commissioner would like to speak with you, Captain Fujita-san."

Putting the paperwork neatly aside, Saitou nodded. "Of course. I'll be right there."

No grumbling. No irritation. No proper and annoyed straightening of the uniform. No glare at the peon who dared to interrupt his work. Nothing.

Chou backed away wondering if someone had managed to get the drop on Saitou and replaced him. Ninjas could do some freaky thinks like making people see what wasn't there. Maybe one, or a whole bunch of 'em had taken the wolf and some freaky ninja guy (or maybe it was a girl!) was wandering around pretending to be him.

Chou sat at his desk weighing the benefits of having a freaky ninja as a boss as Saitou trailed sedately after the boy and disappeared into the commissioner's office. The rest of the station bustled about noisily blocking Chou's ability to overhear the conversation taking place behind the door. He even got up and ambled over to a cabinet next to the office to get some important ink blotters, but the most he could make out was Saitou's voice blandly agreeing to something.

Frustrated and wondering if freaky ninjas could hide entire conversations, Chou sat back at his desk and started gnawing on the dried fish he'd brought for lunch. By the time Saitou stepped out from behind the commissioner's door, Chou had devoured his lunch and was contemplating if he could sneak out to get roast fish at the vendor's on the corner. If it was Saitou, he's have instantly abandoned the idea, but with a freaky ninja…

"The fish cart moved."Saitou walked past Chou. "We're leaving. Go get a carriage."

_Damn, no freaky ninja._

"What's up, boss?" Chou got up and lazed around the desk to Saitou's door, watching him scoop his paperwork up and put it away.

"There had been a rash of suicides among former samurais of the area and their estate managers outside of Tokyo. The trend is now spreading south." Saitou picked up his hat and katana. "The commissioner wants this investigated before it lands on our doorstep." He looked up at Chou. "Where's the carriage?"

"Hey, I had to know where we were heading." Chou spread his hands innocently while shrugging. "I was just trying to do my job."

Saitou shrugged. ""Fin. Get a carriage."

**Saitou 1870ish**

"We are proud samurai." Kurasawa stood on a stump that had been cut flat in the middle of a muddy field. The tree had fallen over during the torrential rains and winds from an unseasonable tsunami that had struck the region in May. "We may not be what were once were, but that does not mean we are less!"

Saitou felt Tokio shiver next to him and shifted his weight subtly so he could block more of the wind from reaching her. She shouldn't have been out in this weather. It was too soon. The wind was too chilly, the ground too damp. It was bad enough that Kurasawa demanded that they leave their fields, shops and work to hear his self-important blathering, but did the man's ego really need to see even the sick in attendance?

"Yes, times are indeed difficult to bear in this new era." Kurasawa struck a heroic pose as he continued.

Saitou quickly glanced over to check his wife. She was standing quietly with her hands clasped in front of her and her head bowed. Her normally well combed and cared for hair hung in limp tendrils hinding her face. He knew if she looked up her eyes would be sunken and dull, her skin ashen, and her lips pale and thin from strain.

"I have seen…"

Others around them looked equally bad. For the second year storms had destroyed seedling crops, killed cattle, and scattered even the wildlife many had come to depend on for food. Tanma, his closest neighbor, had lost two children during the last winter. His wife, a solid, sturdy woman, had taken their remaining child and returned south to live with her parents. News had come a week ago that both had been killed by bandits wearing uniforms, well kept, well pressed uniforms.

"…endurance under hardship! That's the core of a samurai's heart."

Yashika, who was the youngest unmarried man in the area, stood shuffling with hunched shoulders. He'd been a hereditary gate guard for a minor daimyo, proudly serving his doddering old lord until the Meiji had liberated the area from tyranny. Now as punishment for his crime, he had to eek out a barely adequate living as a honey-bucket man and as the village's mortician. Any chance he had of a wife and children were long vanished in this wasteland. Saitou wondered if the kid was lucky. Lucky to not live as a disappointment and see his family die."

"…the corrupt…"

Tokio shivered again, wrapping her arms tight around her too thin body. She never spoke even one syllable of reproach to him. Not for the miserable years he had abandoned her to scrabble a living together in the chaos following the revolution as he was in Echigo, not for taking her way from the comfortable life she had been raised in, not for the decaying hovel they called home, for the meager food that hadn't been enough to sustain their unborn child, who now lay under a pathetic stone at the far end of their blighted fields, for the casual brutality of their lives as petty scum, flotsam from the revolution, roved through town.

"… stand tall, proud of your heritage."

Why? Why didn't she leave him? Her father still held a position in Aizu, with the canny old lord who had managed to finagle a few favors from old friends to retain much of his former position. She could be living in comfort, in silk, eating fine food as servants fluttered at her merest gesture. Yet, here she stood with her dirty hair tangled in the northern wind, dying in slow drops of time.

"…one day we shall be hailed as heroes!" Kurasawa seemed to be winding up. His rhetoric was reaching a fever pitch. Not that his audience had the strength or the interest to care.

Satiou glanced towards the path that led back home. Perhaps it would be best if he carried Tokio on their return trip. It wasn't far. He could see their roof clearly from where they stood. He wasn't sure she was strong enough to make the trek back there though. He wasn't sure if he was strong enough to carry her the whole way, but…

He looked away, trying to not see her standing at his side. Just how much more shameful would it be to collapse under her tiny weight compared to watching her struggle along the path?

Why didn't she leave him when she had still been strong enough to do so?

Why hadn't he been strong enough to demand she go?

* * *

**Research Notes:**

I have to admit, when I reread this chapter, I had to go back and put in more notes. Some of these things I knew as a child. My mother was once stationed in Japan and I grew up knowing about Honey Bucket Men and the Eta. I would appreciate it if you sometimes point out things like this that you don't understand. I am not giving carte blanche to anyone who doesn't agree with the story to ream me, but if I add in something like the Eta and you don't know it, please let me know. I'll do my best to find a picture, a website, or another source to explain the odd point and stick them into the notes.

**Honey Bucket Men**- Honey bucket men had nothing to do with honey. Basically, Japan needed fertilizer. The soil in many places was of poor quality and livestock keeping was pretty minimal (which is why fish is such a staple in their diets). In an effort to counter balance the soil quality, they niftily turned to a dependable source of fertilizer for fields, human bodily waste. It was collected by people called honey bucket men and there was not only a thriving business doing this, but competition. There were "collection" urns along sides of roads and other convenient places where honey bucket men would pick them up on their routs. The waste was then allowed to compost until it was no longer considered dangerous, and then sold to farmers. It was considered a very low level job in the stratified Japanese society.

**Clothes**- I had a small brain freeze when I was trying to remember the Japanese name for pants. I remembered what it translated to "big mouth" but I couldn't remember the Japanese, so I had to look it up. I found this site, which I thought was well done and had some very, very nice information about Japanese clothing. I sort of wished I had read this sooner, then I could have used it to describe the clothes Tokio and Saitou would have worn. I was particularly interested in the seasonal change of colors and the way pattern can differentiate between formal and informal clothing. I'll put it to use someday. .com/japanese_

**Hornets**- these things are scary. They are huge and being stung is not something to be taken lightly. People die from it, even today. They secrete a nerve toxin and have no natural enemies. Happily, they tend to stay in rural areas and are relatively placid unless annoyed. Here's a link. Just thinking about these things is giving me the creeps. .org/wiki/Asian_giant_hornet

**Tanuki**- Just in case you always wondered just what everyone was going on about when they were calling Karou a "raccoon" or a tanuki, I wiki searched this while I was looking at the hornets. .org/wiki/Tanuki. But personally, I liked this better. ..

**Handling the Dead**- this was considered a very bad career to hold since you would be constantly contaminated by the dead (spiritually and physically). I am not sure if the Eta were still around (but there are rumors!). They were the lowest rung on the social ladder (many people would not even touch an Eta because they thought it would contaminate them) and would be the only ones to handle the dead since the higher rungs didn't want to be contaminated. No family of even slightly higher stature would allow a child of theirs to marry such a polluted person and even today the mere suspicion that you descended from the Eta class is enough to scare well off parents away from allowing their child to marry you. That is how disgusting being an Eta is, even your descendants are considered dirty. /~


	7. Planning the Revolution

Collateral Damage

Chapter 7: Planning the Revolution

* * *

**Tokio**

Tokio was sitting placidly on the porch sipping tea when Kenshin stepped out to stretch and greet the morning. She seemed happy as she benevolently smiled up at him with a happy glitter in her eyes.

"I've been thinking."

Kenshin felt a cold shiver go down his back as every instinct that was trained into him by Hiko and the bloody streets of the revolution suddenly sprang to life and told him to run. Seeing there was only a beautiful woman, heavy with child, and armed with no more than a small tea cup, he felt puzzled by this feeling. Perhaps it was left over poison from the bees that was making him feel jumpy or maybe one of the many refugees from the revolution that regularly appeared in his life was taking aim at him, or worse, Saitou's beloved wife. The hell that would open up if Saitou ever found out his darling spouse was killed on his porch was not something Kenshin wanted to contemplate so early in the morning.

"I've been going about this all wrong." She sipped her tea then sighed gently.

He suddenly regretted not having brought anything even close to a weapon with him for his morning stretch and took a step back scanning the area quickly for anything that might do in a pinch. A rake was leaning against the side of the dojo, left there by a careless and painfully hobbling Yahiko last night. That might do, but why? Where was the danger? He scanned around the yard trying to spot it.

"I've been letting him sulk far too long. Don't you think?" Tokio tipped her head and aimed the gentle smile at him.

"Uhhhmmm." Kenshin couldn't spot anything, but his senses were still screaming at him to run, hide, find a weapon and barricade himself and his loved ones in a room.

"I think a more direct approach is needed." Tokio nodded firmly, her mouth temporarily taking on a firm set.

"Yes, that might be fore the best." Kenshin muttered absently as he tried to amble calmly out into the yard to see what was making him so edgy.

"I think so too." Tokio sipped her tea smiling again.

"Perhaps we should go in, that we should." Kenshin eyed the bushes cautiously, but oddly, the feeling was coming from the porch. Was there an enemy lurking underneath?

"Yes, I suppose so." Tokio gracefully scooped up the hem of her kimono and stood. "It is time for those two cubs to be out of bed, and I need to write a few letters."

"Letters?" Kenshin trailed after her still looking for danger but intent on keeping the Wolf's wife safe.

"Yes, happily I have kept in contact with many friends and I think it is time I wrote to them." Tokio paused at the kitchen and set down her tea cup. "Of course first I have to find out where my mangy husband has wandered off to. I suppose he's curled up in his layer at work." She placidly walked over to the room the children were sleeping in, with Kenshin following along feeling more and more uneasy as the sense of danger trailed with them. "I wonder if I can arrange for him to be busy for the next few days while I work out the details."

Eyeing her suspiciously and now revising his estimate of the likelihood of her being a bodhivista, Kenshin lagged back and slidled toward the safe territory of the kitchen. It somehow made sense, now that he thought of it, that Saitou would marry a smiling, gentle, intelligent, lovely, patient, and highly dangerous woman. He just hoped that later in his life his wife never smiled like a bodhivista while plotting his doom.

"He can be so stubborn." She sighed fondly as she paused at the door and looked back at him.

"Breakfast…" Kenshin found himself squeaking as he stepped to the door. "…fish?"

"Yes, fish sounds lovely." She gave him a small delicate smile that nearly sent him reeling into the kitchen. "I'll go get the boys up."

Kenshin retreated completely wondering if he should send a quick message to his master. Surely Hiko would be able to save him if she smiled at him like that again.

**Saitou**

The carriage bumped its way down the road with Chao grumbling and petting his hair. "Every fuckin' bump...every fuckin' one."

Saitou didn't look up from the file that he was reading. He'd been sucessful at ignoring Chao for seven hours and he wasn't going to start paying attention now. Considering that his only distraction had been a file about the decline in petty theft in the Gizo district, he was proud of his achievement. He thought of it as training.

"Hey, you see that? That's the place, isn't it? Yep, that's it." Chao's grooming became more frantic as he tried to get his hair in place. "Who are we going to talk to here? Some samurai guy right?"

Saitou felt the need to twitch at the samurai guy comment, but managed to hold in the impulse. He only had a few more minutes to go. He calmly reread the statistics of pick-pockets for the last six years and compared them to last quarter's. It was mind numbingly dull. He wondered if anyone besides him realized that the reason the pick-pockets had decreased was the introduction of a rather organized and militant Grand Dowager that had opened a geisha house in the neighborhood. The lady in question had had one of her most popular geishas mugged a few months ago and had decided to take a proactive approach to the situation by hiring the thieves as errand boys (spies). His only real puzzle was where the woman got her backing...and the organization. Until her sudden debut into the world of Giza, she'd run a small onsen and had panicked if she'd ran out of oil. He speculated that there was probably a tie with the yakuza, but...who really cared? Petty theft was down, pedestrians were happy, the right people had the right amount of money in their coffers, if not a bit more, and there was one less district that the police had to send extra patrols through.

As the carriage stopped, he closed the file, checked his uniform to make sure it was neat, smoothed his own hair back with a flick of his hand, and put the file away. The samurai-dude and his family had just recently lost a fortune due to bad investments. His eldest son, who had been in charge of the family finances, had died suddenly a week prior. The listed cause of death was influenza. A commonly listed cause of death when for one reason or another when the family didn't want seppuku listed. After all, such an old-fashion practice was now frowned upon, leaving families to live fulfilling lives with their shame intact not their honor.

The driver leapt down and opened the door. The servants of the estate were already bustling foreword hastily disposing of brooms, buckets, and brushes as they rustled around in a flurry of activity. Poor or not, they had a duty to perform for their master, to present the house and the family graciously and with respect.

Saitou stepped out and reflexively moved out of the way as Chao fumbled and cursed his way out of the coach. A few pleasantries later, he found himself kneeling on the tatami mat in front of the master of the house with Chao busily "inspecting the estate", which he hoped translated to keep the dim wit busy to the canny old retainer that had taken the ahou in hand.

"I do not know why the police would have sent you here." The old samurai looked honestly puzzled. "While my son's death was a tragedy," the man's voice only had a tiny trace of a hitch at that. An untrained listener would never have noticed it. "there was nothing in his passing that was remarkable. He went out hunting with his friends in the mountains, caught a chill, and died of it."

"We are just concerned." Saitou kept his eyes level and his voice pleasant. "There have been a few occurrences that have raised questions in the area."

The man's lips pursed together tight. "My steward would know more about such things."

_And that answers that question._ Saitou bowed politely as the man motioned for the servant to pour tea. _He knows something is going on in the area but it is about money so he won't talk about it._ "If you don't mind, I'll speak to him later. I'd like to know though if you have heard of anything else besides those," he gave his hand a dismissive wave, as if anything that one had to talk to the steward about was only a minor consideration. "Have you heard of anyone strange arriving in the area? Someone who didn't ...belong?" He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial note at the end of the sentence.

"Nooo." The old samurai drawled thoughtfully. "We've had the occasional visitor, and a Westerner made a few inquiries into moving into the area, but he...changed his mind." The man sipped his tea, but his lips tipped slightly, indicating concealed amusement, and perhaps satisfaction.

"How...unfortunate." Saitou could already guess that among the man's recent acquisitions would be a strip of property purchased for far more than the land's worth.

"The Westerners would have been uncomfortable here. I hear they all enjoy the city life much more than the simple pleasures of the country. I am sure they have found a nice home amongst their own people." The man sipped his tea again. "I visited the Westerner's district the last time I was in town. It was very... pleasant." The man's eyes glanced slightly away and his lips twitched into a hint of a pitting smile.

Saitou nodded and pretended to sip his tea. The man's wife, or cook, had never learned how to brew it apparently and liked it...

_...extra, extra strong._

Saitou took a deep breath shoving the pain down where it wouldn't bother him until the middle of some night when his past and his regrets would surface to smother him with their weight.

"Yes." Saitou smiled his false smile. "Their houses are quite picturesque."

The interview didn't go much farther. The man knew nothing important and, Saitou guessed, he didn't know anything unimportant either. The steward was only slightly more intelligent and while looking disdainfully at him for dirtying himself with monetary concerns, showed Saitou the books he needed to check. The son had shuffled numbers and created a few exotic looking withdrawals which looked more like a gambling addiction than poor financial handling. It would need looking into when he arrived back in Tokyo, but there was nothing that he had to deal with immediately.

He left the estate just before dark, directing the driver to an inn near the next estate he wanted to check on. The roads were in good condition, so driving wouldn't be too much trouble and Chao was exhausted from his inspection tour. It would put him farther out than his orders originally covered, but it wasn't like he had anything better to do.

**Tokio**

"He what?" Tokio tipped her head inquiringly at the office boy that smiled at her besottedly.

"He left for the countryside this afternoon." The boy eagerly told her.

She wasn't vain enough to believe that he was attracted to her. A hefty pregnant woman with blotchy skin and lank hair... _Damn pregnancy, Just once I want Saitou to get blotchy skin and bad hair! And a back ache! Yes, he should have a back ache too!.._was hardly the most appealing female in his limited experience, but the bribe of a weeks worth of meals had the poor boy nearly drooling on the paving stones.

"Oh dear." She looked regretful. "I probably just missed him at home and I so needed to talk to him."

_Well, that keeps him out of the way for a bit. Still, sneaking out of town, Saitou? What next? Hiding in the bath house to avoid your family?_

"I don't suppose you know where he is going, do you?" She tapped the letter she'd acquired from the noodle cart owner that would allow the boy a week's worth of lunches.

Eyes riveted worshipfully to her, and her magical letter, he stuttered, "Ashikaga, just north of Tokyo. He has to talk to some people out there about something important."

"Thank you very much. You've been too kind." _I've about thirty contacts in that district._ Tokio handed over the letter and with an only slightly awkward bow waddled... _Damn, damn, damn. If the fates were just he'd waddle too.._ towards the market where she was to meet Sano to buy tiles for the roof. _I could start there. A few messages would arrive by tomorrow and keep him...busy...yes, busy, very busy while I put things in place here...or better yet, I could start on reforming his mangy hide. His skull is too thick for anything but direct pounding of a new idea into his head, but a few well placed...examples... _She smiled delicately, scaring an old man who abruptly had a cold feeling creep down his spine and a definite feeling he should get his wife a gift... _would be a good reinforcer._

She heard Sano as she turned the corner.

"Yo, over here!" The young man waved enthusiastically from the eastern corner of the market. Around him were stacks of timber and what looked like crates of rocks.

She waddled a bit faster ..._And swollen feet!_ Sano seemed excited about something and by the big smile and slightly bouncy motions he was making, it was something good._ He really is like Harada, right down to the way he shifts his weight to the balls of his feet as if he was going to take of running. I wonder if Harada ever met this boy's mother. It would explain a few things._

"You should see this!" Sano waved excitedly at a pile of crates. "They got an order for a house, everything all set, then the guy backed out."

"How fortunate!" Tokio smiled, then pinned that smile in place when she noticed the light blue color of the tile that even new had a dusty, moldy look to them.

"Isn't it great." He patted the box of tile fondly. "We can get the roof done by tomorrow."

To say no would be like crushing the hopes of a puppy, but if she didn't do it, her house would be a nightmare. She honestly didn't mind blue. It was a very pretty color, but she didn't want her home to, well, look like the roof was forever in need of a good scrubbing. She caught Sano by the arm and pulled him around to the corner of one of the pallets of tiles where the shop owner, drawn by the Sano's jubilant voice, now stood rubbing his hands together with a wide grin on his face.

"We need to look around." She looked at a tall stack of tiles. "If we seem too eager, the price will be high."

"Oh, yeah, right." Sano frowned seriously at the stack she was inspecting. "It's just such a great..."

"These are quite nice, too." She nodded at the stack of dark brown tiles she was looking at. "A bit thin though."

"Yeah," Sano shifted to look at another stack. "These aren't bad."

The owner came around the corner, "If you need any help, I would be honored to answer even the smallest of questions."

Tokio gestured towards the stack Sano was near. "How many of those do you have?"

"Oh, I'd have to check." He bustled away and in a second came back with a boy and a young man. The boy climbed the stacks like a monkey while the man went around the stacks making notes on a tablet. "It will only take a minute." He smiled heartily at them. "While they are tallying them, is there anything else of interest to you?" His eyes shifted hopefully towards the stacks of blue tile.

_Which means you overheard Sano's discreet yelling and are eager to get rid of those tiles. _Tokio looked around innocently and glared at Sano who had opened his mouth to blurt out his interest in the blue tile. "Do you have any other brown tile, maybe a bit darker than this one?"

That put a bit of a kink in the owners dreams of a quick ending of his nightmare of unsellable tile, but he rebounded quickly. "Of course, come this way."

The next stack was only a few steps away, under the eves of the building the owner proudly claimed ownership to, which Tokio genuinely hoped would soon be tiled in blue. The tiles were dark, nearly black, and nicely thick.

"These are the finest we have and I carry the best in Tokyo, the whole prefecture!" The man crowed as he gently pulled a tile out of the pallet. "Note that this tile looks brown in this light, but just look!" He held the tile into the bright sun. "It's actually green."

"I like the blue better." Sano muttered to her.

"But look at the color." Tokio enthused stamping on Sano's foot.

"Ow." Sano grumped.

The owner, seeing a sale, concentrated on Tokio. "And the luster, beautiful but not pretentious."

"Awww, come on." Sano grabbed Tokio's arm and abruptly pulled her around the corner. "Look, that blue isn't that..."

The sound of a loud crash, a quick appalled hush, then a scream. "The tiles!"

Sano bolted back around the corner with Tokio waddling after him. The owner of the shop was huddled on the ground near where a smashed flat of tiles lay. Blood was seeping through his fingers from a cut on his head.

A little, stout woman in a long dusty apron was ran forward, "Oh, oh. You are hurt. Oh, oh, The tiles. Oh, oh."

The shop owner waved her off, "I'm fine. Just a nick when a piece of tile hit me."

She ignored him and bundling her apron tried to wipe the blood way. "Oh, oh, oh."

The owner got up and looked around patting the woman's hands reassuringly as she continued to try to clean his face. "Is anyone else hurt?"

"Nope." Sano looked around. "But how did that fall?"

"Probably the boy slipped and jarred it loose." He frowned upwards. "Hiding by now, I'd wager."

"That boy!" The woman fumed looking around for the culprit. "So careless."

Tokio glanced up but couldn't find the little fiend. "Boys are like that."

"I do apologize for the inconvenience." The owner made an unsteady bow. "That my customers had to witness such a sight…" He sighed and looked forbiddingly upwards. "My family has traded in tile for seven generations. It would grieve me to know that such an impression would be made."

Sano shrugged, "Hey, no pr…"

Tokio, a bit more sensitive to touchy pride and the ways of shopkeepers, drove her elbow into Sano's side, smiled gently at the owner of the shop, and nodded. "I understand."

"I have a shipment of tile, beautiful kawara tile." The man glanced behind him towards the back of the store. "I will sell them to you for the same price as that." He pointed towards the blue.

"Hey, you d…" Sano began only to be silenced again as Tokio's elbow drove into his liver.

"You do us an honor." Tokio bowed.

The man, with the help of his wife, wobbled back into his store. With a final glance upwards, Tokio followed him with a now cautious Sano in tow.

"I really like that blue tile." Sano mumbled protecting his vulnerable midsection by crossing his arms and staying a few paces back.

"Don't dishonor him so." Tokio smiled back to the young man making Sano wince. "Allow him to do us this favor so he can rest easy knowing that the name of his shop is intact."

"Aren't we taking advantage?" Sano looked uncomfortably at her at her as she carefully stepped around a set of end caps.

"Nonsense. He's going to inflate the price of those blue tiles so we at best will get only a small discount for the kawara." She cleared the obstacle. "He goes to be feeling that his honor is intact, we go on our way with tile at a good price, and the name of his business remains intact. He can even brag to his neighbors about his generosity. Really, Sano, he's got a slight cut on his head. He's not delirious."

"Oh." Sano scratched his head uncomfortably wondering why in his head someone added the word "ahou" to the end of that small lecture.

**Tokio**

Everything was in chaos. She curled tighter into a ball under the hydrangea as a band of men charged down the small alleyway waving swords and screaming victory. Okita, looking pale and thin, crouched next to her gripping his sword and panting weakly for breath.

Everyone was gone. Everyone.

The people she had smiled at, bickered with, and dallied away long dull afternoons with, the fighters, their wives, and even their children were either dead, or taken prisoner. Beautiful, stupid Midori had died on the end of a sword, killed for daring to marry one of the Shinsengumi. It didn't matter that Midori had despised her unfaithful husband. No one had asked as they had pulled her out of her house and killed her in the street. No more than it had mattered to the people that had beaten and raped delicate, unsure Kiiroi that her darling Matsu had tired of her about a week after their marriage and had only maintained a fiction of a marriage to ensure his family wouldn't disown him.

And Saitou was dead. Her wolf wouldn't prowl through the door in the middle of the night with that smirk on his face and rain glittering in his hair. He wouldn't drive her mad with his sneaking up on her to scoop her up into an undignified, shrieking bundle and spin about until she was laughing and clinging to his shoulders. She'd never be able to tease him with spilled tea, poke him in the side at night when he snored, muss up his hair, see him arch one eyebrow over something dubious. It was gone.

She wanted to kick Okita for saving her and then run into the street until some kind soul killed her. She was sure it wouldn't take long.

"Come on." Okita wheezed, slinking forward, and tugging her hand. "The boat is down here. Just be quiet and remember, you're my nurse."

The night smelled of blood. She'd thought she had become used to it, but now it seemed to have drenched everything. The alleyway they ran down had rivulets running down the gutter, but it hadn't rained for weeks. The brief glimpses of the main street they were running parallel to only offered views of still bodies and dark puddles. Yelling, screaming, howls of anger, guttural cries of aggression echoed around her as Okita dragged her forward.

Her wolf couldn't be dead. He couldn't. He'd never leave her like this, alone in hell. It was just a bad dream. Okita was off in the country being babied by his family and sending Saitou letters on how he should come rescue him from his sisters. He definitely was not pulling her through an alley as Kyoto died around them. No, this was a dream, a bad dream.

"Over there." Okita slumped against a broken wall and pointed towards the river. A small boat with an old man crouched at the stern bobbed on the water. "Remember, he's my father. You are my nurse."

Insane. The whole thing was insane. She'd have to tell Saitou about this dream when he got home. He'd probably laugh and tease her about running off with Okita. She felt her lips twitch with suppressed laughter imagining Saitou's teasing. She, of course, could confide that she'd always preferred Okita to him, and perhaps add in a few points about Okita's personality matching hers better. He'd give her a scoffing look. They'd wrangle it out for awhile until they both ended up in a pile of clothes with their hands dancing across each other's skin.

The boat bobbed lightly as they stepped on. The old man barely looked at them as he pushed away from the tiny pier that he'd tethered the boat to and navigated through the strange, better not to look too closely, lumps that floated down the river. Occasionally, things splashed heavily into the water. Sometimes, all three of them crouched down beneath sides of the boat as arrows flew hissingly overhead. They paused for a moment as they passed out of the city so the old man could nod knowingly at the two men who nervously stood guard.

"About time, old man." One grunted. "Thought you got yourself killed."

"No, no." The old one snorted. "Just getting my worthless son out. He'll be the death of his mother with all the worry he puts her through."

They eyed Tokio for a moment, then shrugged. "Go on, we've got other things to worry about than you."

And they were past. The river spread out before them.

Okita stopped being tense and aside from watching the banks carefully, relaxed. "We just have to get to the next large pier. We'll be met there and head for the country. I think we can be clear of the main fighting by sunrise."

It didn't matter.

"Is your calligraphy still as beautiful as it was?" Okita pulled a tarp out from under a seat and covered them both with it. "I was thinking you might be able to become Yaso again, teach calligraphy."

She didn't care. What was there to care about?

It was just a bad dream.

It didn't matter.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

Okay, today for your pleasure, I found nice pictures! Yay!

**Onsen**- Here take a look at these. . . I wanna go. I went to something like these in Korea, but far more encased in concrete. Lovely, absolutely lovely, even with the concrete. Here is my friend wiki to catch you up on it: en. wikipedia .org/wiki/Onsen . If you are ever in Asia, you really cannot go home without visiting one of these. They are crowded, at least the ones I went to were, but so amazingly relaxing. I highly recommend them if you get off a plane feeling like you are lugging death around on your shoulders. After a few hours of soaking and soothing, you'll be ready for…dinner. You are on your own there. Just remember, live squid sticks to your teeth.

**North of Tokyo**- After a brave search, I found a great map of Japan. /image/map/ which shows a few places that many of the other online maps don't without loading you down with roads, small burgs and other detritus. I'm odd I guess. I like my maps simple.

**Geishas**- I had to do it. I feel kind of cheap since it smacks of the whole Memoirs of a Geisha thing, but here. .org/wiki/Geisha . I'm sure there is a Japanese name for the head of a geisha house, but I admit, I liked the idea of a Grand Dowager.

**Kawara Tile**- This comes in many colors but is highly regarded worldwide as one of the most beautiful tiles in existence. Personally, I actually like blue tile roofs, but when thinking of the tile that Sano liked, think of cheap Wedgewood. Here's a site about kawara tile: www. shukei .jp/english/shokunin_ kawara. html but more interesting is this: .com/lh/photo/LekjcA7-uSd2WHkyjYS7KQ . Each tile is unique and different, but when placed together just look how beautiful they are.

Remember to take out the spaces and add an http colon backslash backslash to all the addresses.


	8. Denial

Collateral Damage

Chapter 8: Denial

AN: Like always, this hasn't been proofread. Someday, I will have time to get a beta. Really, I will.

* * *

**Saitou**

The day was a beautiful day with clear skies that gleamed deep blue, soft cool winds to cool his brow as he walked through happily clucking chickens, and a benign sun that smiled gently down. Saitou appreciated it. Wearing a scratchy wool uniform was often a trial which necessitated his always wearing a shirt underneath it and often unbuttoning his collar despite the regulations that forbade it, but the weather conspired to make his torment light. Indeed, it was pleasant enough that he had gleefully delegated Chou to the task of talking with the lord of the present estate he was touring and took the more menial task of a site inspection. There was only one problem.

The cherub smiled up from where it had latched onto his leg. "Momma loves Pappa. Pappas should love Mommas."

The other little…angel…that had attached itself to his other leg nodded. "Mommas and Pappas should always love each other."

Their siblings, all three of them danced about him. "That's right. And when things get tough Pappas and Mommas should help each other."

He had hoped to avoid this. For the last five days every single place he had come to had delivered an inspiring message about the strength of family, surviving through hardship with togetherness, and how living through the revolution had brought the families closer than ever as they shared the burdens of healing from tragedies. A few families had even confidentially taken him into their trust by somberly telling about the trials they had endured, which ranged from torture to homelessness to dishonor, and how they had triumphed through togetherness. It had gotten to the point that he would have suspected a divine joke. His life was in shambles and everywhere he went, even the inn keeper and his wife, were nearly singing duets of marital bliss. Unfortunately for him, despite his brave, selfless insistence that Chou have the delight of hearing the tales of tragedy redeemed, he hadn't taken into account being ambushed by the children.

"Pappa was very unhappy, but Momma helped." The left child drooled on his pant leg as its smile grew wider.

He wondered what sex the child was. The round, bowl cut, the shapeless square cut…thing…the child was clothed in, and the round, dirt smudged face gave no clues. The others dressed in the same uniform, right down to the dirt, were similarly sexless.

"Yes, Pappa was lost, but Momma found him." One of the older ones, distinguished only by being bigger, rounder, and slightly less inclined to lisp, nodded gravely at him.

"My condolences on his lack of directional ability." Saitou muttered. "He was definitely wise in marrying someone to correct his short coming."

The child, not entirely sure what he had said, looked a bit confused but nodded good naturedly. "Pappa and Momma are wise."

Saitou grunted noncommittally. The estate, while enjoying pleasant weather was far from well run. The old samurai who owned it had let it run into the ground and his son, Pappa, had spent most of his time apparently trying to populate the world with round children who prattled about the wonders of marital life and ignored the basics of running the estate. The only person that seemed interested was the old retainer who pottered around the house pulling weeds and rubbing his arthritic joints. If money was missing, it probably had disappeared from being misplaced, not stolen.

"Are you a poppa?" One of the children who had thus far been mercifully quiet piped up in a squeaky voice that would guarantee a long life of singleness.

_Now, that's a question. Does it count that I am the father of two children and if they even know who I am when they grow up it will be because my wife, who just lately came to her senses enough to leave me, had mercy on my wretched soul and told them about me? Or is it more truthful to say no. I am not a father and never was. A father is a man who helps raise and nurture his children. All I have ever done was impose on my wife's tolerance then run away like a coward before she came to her senses and spat in my face._

"Shhh. " One of the bigger rounder children gave the other a warning glare. "That's not nice. He might not have met a nice Momma to marry." The child gave him a comforting pat on the arm. "I'm sure he'll find one soon."

"Nitsu down the street isn't married." The squeaky one supplied. "She's nice. She'd make a nice momma."

"Nah," her bigger sibling shook his head, "he should go see Amane in the next village. All the boys say she's really friendly. I heard them talking."

One of the children that were attached to him drooled on his leg. The other seemed to be losing interest in being a uniform accessory and was eyeing his sword. The rest of the children seemed ready to chose sides in the Nitsu-Amane debate and watched in interest as their siblings squared off to see which girl would make him a better wife.

Saitou looked around at the beautiful day and sighed. If he was lucky, he would be able to drag this assignment out for another week before he had to head back to Tokyo where no one waited for him to come home.

**Tokio**

Tokio lumbered down the road after Kenshin. She knew that she wasn't actually lumbering, but she felt she was. Half of her was surprised that Kenshin wasn't yelling at people to make way for the large load coming through. As it was, she rubbed her back which was aching, and forced herself to plod along at a faster pace.

"Tokio-dono," Kenshin blinked back at her with wide violet eyes, "should we pick up the paper first or the glue?"

Tokio lumbered the last few steps up to him and paused to fully appreciate not walking. Now, if there was only a place where she, her aching back, and swollen feet could spend a hour or so appreciating things, she would dedicate her soul to the merciful god that bequeathed that hour of contemplation on her. Instead, she calculated the distance to the shop at the end of the street that had the glue and the stand that sold paper.

"Why don't you pick up the glue while I fetch the paper." She figured she'd save about twelve minutes and a minimum of forty paces if she split the task up.

Kenshin looked worried, no doubt contemplating her lumbering and the likelihood that she'd go into labor if left alone for more than a minute. There seemed to be a growing concern among the males of the Kamiya Dojo that she would burst if left alone and unattended. Despite the far more knowledgeable and calm assessment by their doctor friend Megumi that she was weeks away from that event, the looks of startled anxiety if she so much as claimed she didn't want another cup of tea told her that in their masculine minds, she was precariously perched on the edge of an event they all desperately didn't want to have anything to do with.

"No, no, this one will fetch both." Kenshin looked around hurriedly to find a place, anyplace where she could sit and concentrate on holding off motherhood for the few perilous minutes he'd be gone.

_If you were that concerned, why did you need to take me along with you?_ Tokio shook her head and started towards the paper stall. "Let's get the paper and we will discuss that."

The rurouni persona that Kenshin had adopted was very cute, she decided, but he took it to extremes. While it kept Karou and Yahiko soothed that the dreaded Batousai wandered around their lives with wide, innocent eyes and cluelessly orroing about odd things, she had few doubts that under that mask was the battle trained soldier she'd heard of and secretly had lost sleep thinking about during the nights Saitiou and his pack of wolves had patrolled Kyoto's streets. However, when he blinked so dimwittedly at her, she silently understood what drove Saitou to want to take a sword to him.

As Kenshin dithered, gesturing towards a shady bench under the eves of a fan seller, she made her heavy way to the paper seller. Now that she was here, she wanted to make sure she got the correct paper. The last time she was in town, she had noticed a paper that had the most exquisite texture to it. It had been beautifully white with a faint pattern of un-ryuu ghosting through its pristine background. Even if her feet swelled, she could at least be crippled as she appreciated the beauty of her new windows and doors.

"Tokio-dono should sit and rest." Kenshin was nearly begging and wringing his hands as he looked longingly between her and the shady bench. "Getting tired is not good, that it is not!"

"Once I get the paper, I will sit down and rest while you get the glue." Tokio felt a moment of pure triumph as she reached the paper seller.

The paper wasn't on the shelf she had previously spotted it, so she waved over the merchant. "Do you have any more of the white un-ryu paper?"

As she and the man began talking, Kenshin eyed her suspiciously for signs of motherhood. "Tokio-dono will go sit after she buys paper?"

"I promise." Indeed, she would kill any poor soul between her and the bench.

Kenshin took a step away, assessed that nothing dire happened, then nodded. "Tokio-dono only needs to call and…"

"TRAITOR!" An angry voice yelled causing peaceful shoppers to startle.

With an almost patient sigh, Kenshin smile apologetically at Tokio. "This will only take a moment. Please remember to sit down after you buy the paper."

"Flith!" A large man was striding towards them. "How dare you show your face among honest people?"

"Complete sentences." Kenshin murmured. "Must write this down."

The man drew a sword and as the crowd scattered out of his way, he rushed towards where Kenshin and Tokio stood.

"Die!"

"So much for complete sentences." Kenshin took a deep breath and timing his attack knocked the man cold then watched in private satisfaction as the other collapsed into the letter ku. He'd been practicing and was pleased with the overall effect. He glanced up from under his bangs to where Tokio stood, hoping she hadn't noticed what really alarmed him about the attack. The man had been looking at her, not him when he had raised his sword.

"Tokio-dono is unhurt?" Kenshin gave her s sheepish smile. "Sadly, this happens quite a bit. Last week, I had three."

"Three?" Tokio stared down at the man then shook her head.

"Tokio-dono, this will take some time to straighten out." Kenshin nodded towards the bench as a police whistle sounded nearby. "Perhaps your feet would like a rest while this man is taken away."

"Of course." She waddled towards the bench. "Please, don't hurry on my account. My feet will thank you."

A group of officers ran into the square as she settled down. They hardly seemed surprised as they efficiently hoisted the unconscious man up and one officer pulled out a pencil and a note pad with practiced ease as he located Kenshin. The red head with equal skill promptly started stating facts that the officer would need to know.

The dreaded Batousai indeed was practiced in handling these minor details. Tokio would have smiled, but she had also lived through the revolution and while she might not have stalked the street armed with a weapon fighting for one side or the other, she had learned in those dark days to always watch an attacker's eyes. They always gave away where the strike would be directed. Despite Kenshin's excuse, she had seen that she had been the target. That man's eyes had been locked to hers as he had raised his sword and rushed forward. It had only been an quirk of fate that Kenshin had been standing next to her when he had. She had been the traitorous filth that should not be walking amongst the populace of Tokyo, not Kenshin. It didn't take much to remember Sano's surprised face as the wasp nest fell, or the sudden crash of tiles hitting the ground where seconds before she had been standing. Duty or not, it was time that Saitou came home.

**Saitou 1871**

It was nearly begging. Only the trappings of the small pile of vegetables and small table that he'd scrounged from a trash heap at the edge of town covered him with the veneer of being a merchant. His clothes were in rags, his produce was low quality, and he was thin, dirty, and probably smelled. With each kindly smiling, pitying customer that bought his produce, he bowed gratefully and thanked them with words that only reinforced his station. Thank you for helping this unworthy one. Thank you, master.

When the day was done and darkness would cover him, he would raid trash bins around the market, collecting the discards that the other merchants would deem too old, too bruised, or too rotten to sell so that he would have something to sell the next day. In a week, if he was lucky and the town allowed him to stay that long, he would move to the next town and continue. Perhaps in a month or two, he would have earned enough to buy rice enough to see Tokio through the winter.

An old lady with palsied hands picked up a diakon from his pile. "This one, if you will."

"Of course, mistress." Saitou bowed as her servant handed him a coin. "Do you want me to wrap that?"

He had a few pieces of paper he had lucked into the night before to add a further layer of patina to his begging.

"No, no." She shook her head, handing the radish to her servant who put it in a basket. "We are quite prepared."

She gave him a kindly smile and turned away.

"Mistress, your change." Saitou held out a few small coins.

The old woman kept walking, already gesturing to another spot in the market.

"Thank you, mistress. May your next life reflect your kindness in this one." Saitou bowed to her back.

He pocketed the coins and settled back to wait. The day dragged onwards slowly. The other merchants ignored him for the most part, though the ones nearest him frowned. He guessed that they would explain to him soon that his kind weren't welcome in their town. His kind should not remind them that the Meji era was hardly the time of peace and prosperity they had been promised. His kind should remain hidden, silent, and grateful that prosperity had come to Japan on the wings of the glorious revolution.

He looked warily around the crowd as shouting broke out. A few patrons looked around, interested in the noise, but quickly went back to their shopping. Another round of shouting revealed a group of young men, drunk and merry, playfully roughing each other along the street.

Saitou watched them carefully as they turned a corner and tumbled out of sight. His own squad in the Shinsengumi had been like that on their free time. Tumbling through the streets of Kyoto like puppies, they would go from bar to gambling den to tea house leaving a trail of laughter and minor mayhem behind them. When they had come back to headquarters, he'd frown at them like a disapproving parent and they'd lower their heads, snickering and poking each other despite his promise of running the liquor out of them the next day.

And he did it too, just to hear their unrepentant moans and muffled complaints. They knew the next time they were free they would be out drinking again, and they knew he would be once again waiting for them when they got back. It was their ritual, their game, their way to achieve a bit of normalcy in the center of chaos. A way to ignore what was becoming more and more clear as the revolution wore on. After all, how bad could bad be if they still went out to drink and play? How bad could it be if the worse punishment meted out was a day of patrolling?

Was it wrong that he was glad they hadn't survived to find out just how bad it really was? They had died with dignity, with honor. They died fighting for things they had believed in to the moment a sword or a bullet had ended their lives.

A few people wandered in his direction, so he pulled himself out of his past. "Vegetables. Vegetables. Fresh vegetables for your table."

The people looked at him, at his filthy hands and face, his poor clothes, his cast off stock and walked away. The other merchants near him muttered loudly about him driving off customers. He hunkered back down to wait. Perhaps he should gather what he could tonight and by tomorrow morning he'd be in the next town. With a bit of luck, he might find a stream to wash himself and his gleanings from the garbage in. Maybe in the next town, he'd make more money. Just a bit more, that was all he needed and he could go home.

He wanted to go home nearly as much as he feared it. If he was home, he was with Tokio. She was all he had. His only reason for all he did. For her, he sat on this street peddling garbage and grinding even the memory of his pride into the ground to accept charity. For her, he would travel through the night to the next village to earn a few more small coins so she could have food this winter. For her, he would bargain for the most rice he could carry on his back and hurry home. For her, he would push aside his half eaten food this winter so she could have more. And for her, next spring, he would once again try to be a farmer on land that would never support them with its poor soil. It was all he could do, and now, all he really wanted to do.

But she'd leave. He was sure of it. One day, he would come home and she'd be gone. She'd leave behind the filthy shack they called home, the small graves of the still born children that lined up behind their home, the ramshackle village full of starving desperate people, and him, her failed husband. She would return to Aisu where her father would pamper her with fine foods, dress her in the finest silk, and surround her with every comfort available. In time, her father would find her a new husband who would provide her with all the things he couldn't. She'd be respected, safe. She'd have children to tumble at her feet and cuddle on her lap. She'd spend her days sipping tea with her friends, laughing lightly over things their children did, or sighing fondly about their husbands.

The only thing, he long ago reasoned, that kept her with him was her sense of duty. Only that kept her in his life, but one day, maybe it had even happened, she would realize that whatever duty she had left to him had ended when he had stopped fulfilling his duties as her husband to keep her safe, provide a good home for her, and give her the life she had been born to.

Saitou shoved those thoughts aside with a shake. Enough. Enough. There was no time to be feeling sorry for himself. He had vegetables to sell. He had plans to make. He had to take the measure of his fellow salesmen to see if they would take action today of if he had more time. He had to keep his eyes open for opportunities to make more money. Perhaps he could make enough money to take up for real what he had done once for disguise and become a medicine peddler. It would certainly bring in more money. Perhaps he should not only search for vegetables in the trash but new clothes as well. He'd have to search closer towards the cloth merchants' section for that. He wouldn't be able to reach the next village tonight, but perhaps he'd get there early enough to still get a good spot tomorrow.

Yes, time to focus. He had work to do.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

I owe you all an explanation. Two years ago this summer, right when my writing slowed down, my mother passed away. That was horrible and I was a mess for a long, long time. Then, when I was just managing to pull myself together, I decided to be all responsible and forward thinking so I went back to school. I am now working two jobs (soon to be three or four) and going to grad school full time. To make my life even happier, I now have computer trouble. This draft (cross my fingers) is probably the fifth draft since two computers ate my other drafts as they crashed. I will not abandon this story! It will just take time.

**Poppa and Momma/ Husband and Wife**: I know that the correct terms for poppa and momma should be chichi and haha, but I decided to go for the English version. I figured that since I wasn't using the terms for husband and wife, which would have given a bit more depth to the story, I should remain true to my own pattern. In case you are wondering, you can go back through the story and fill in shujin for husband when Tokio addresses or thinks about Saitou and okusan for when Saitou thinks about or talks about Tokio. Shujin is how a wife refers to her own husband, but Saitou always uses okusan which is how one refers to another's wife. He should by rights call her tsuma. Would it annoy or confuse anyone if I used those terms? It's a small point, but a telling one in their relationship. I chose not to use it because it sometimes annoys me when an author uses words that I don't understand and have no desire to learn.

**Un-Ryu**: Is a pattern of threads in shoji paper that calls to mind clouds in the sky which gives the paper its name Cloud Dragon. It is made of mulberry wood and is quite pretty. I would give you the site, but I've noticed that every time I do this site clips my research. Just go google it and you'll see. Tokio is looking at a nearly pure white version of it. Just go look at the images and find the white one. It's about on page 4 of my search screen.


	9. Duel

AN: I really need a beta. Really. I had a terrible time with this chapter. I agonized over it…for six months and 12 copies. I know I have let this slide before, but now I really, really need one to bounce my worries and ideas off of. Anyone still interested?

Collateral Damage

Chapter9: Duel

* * *

"So, you came back." Kenshin's commented from behind him. "Seeing how you have been avoiding her, I had a few doubts."

Saitou growled glancing back at the smaller man. "Go away."

"I thought it was odd that you avoided us at the market, and that you never came near while we worked on your house."

"I was busy." Saitou dug into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette case and then thought better of it and put them both away. It wouldn't do to have to Battōsai seeing that his hands were slightly shaking. "I do have a job."

Kenshin went on in a musing voice. "I also thought it strange that you never came near the dojo while Karou-dono was teaching the boys." Kenshin paused a second as Saitou huffed slightly and turned away. "You will be happy to know they are doing fine with that."

"Thank you for the report. Now leave." Saitou made his voice smooth. It took a bit of concentration. When he had come into the house, saw that not only was Tokio not there, but an iron, English monstrosity had taken up residence in the corner of the room where his over strung nerves had only registered an enemy, his composure had briefly deserted him. He wondered if the red haired menace he was somehow cursed with noticed.

"When the accidents started to happen, and you didn't take notice, I began to wonder." Instead of leaving, Kenshin came closer. "I had heard that you two were close, but that was during the revolution. Things do change."

"My married life is not your concern." Saitou eyed the menace out of the corner of his eyes. He really didn't want to deal with him right now. He just wanted to make sure Tokio was safe, and then he could deal with whoever was stupid enough to try and harm her. After, he would slink back to his den with another mark to weigh down his soul. It didn't take more than a brief half second to realize that someone was after him and Tokio was in danger because of it. Even when he tried to let her go find a new, happier life, he did nothing but bring misery down on her.

"Yet here you are and quickly too." Kenshin walked around to stand in front of Saitou. "I suppose you do care."

"Whether I care or not is not your concern." Saitou turned away heading for the door, feeling a thrill shiver through him as he deliberately turned his back on Kenshin. He liked it. Turning his back on a dangerous enemy, wondering what it would be like to feel the slender, coldness of a sword slice through him."I take it my wife is at the dojo."

"Aoshi is staying with her at the moment." Kenshin followed along behind the retreating figure, watching him with a worried frown. "I thought it best that she not be left with only Karou and Yahiko for company."

Saitou only grunted as he stepped out the door.

"I wonder though, if she summoned you back because you are her husband, the father of her son, and felt obligated, or if she called you back because she honestly wanted you here. You have not been what anyone would call a loving husband, or even a dutiful one." Kenshin's musing voice froze Saitou in place. "A husband who hides from his wife, who makes up excuses to stay away from her…is not much of a husband at all."

"Battōsai …" Saitou's voice growled menacingly. He didn't need the Battōsai giving him marriage advice, not now. Hell, not ever.

"You need not worry, Satiou. Between Aoshi and myself, we can keep Tokio-dono safe. You can run away again." Kenshin's voice had changed pitch. It wasn't the happy rurouni voice but more shadowed. "Or perhaps you want something else? How long Saitou will you play with death before you let it reach out and take you?" Kenshin's gold eyes watched his opponent carefully. "I doubt you will keep it waiting long, will you?"

"Tokio…"

"Was being polite." Kenshin stepped around him into the street and started walking away. "Do not concern yourself. I will tell Tokio-dono that you came, assessed the situation, and left it to Aoshi and I to deal with." Kenshin paused, then looked back over his shoulder, his eyes gleaming in the night. "I doubt she will be surprised. I wonder if you will even be missed."

Saitou shivered. It was one thing to listen to his own doubts, but to have them come from the Battōsai's mouth was more than he could stand. His hand shifted to his katana hilt. "Stay out of this Battōsai. This is not your concern."

"Not my concern…" Kenshin's voice purred. "I found it odd when the wasps attacked. They don't often come to the city, much less stay in the beams of an occupied house unnoticed. The roof itself was a bit of a mystery too, how it managed not to fall on top of Tokio-dono and the children with the majority of the pegs cut away is probably more a fortune of good weather than building, but odd still since it should have collapsed during the last rainy season. A flat of tiles falling where Tokio-dono was standing? An accident? A clumsy boy? Or the man in the market who attacked, was that random too? Just a man who suddenly remembered one of the wives of the Shinsengumi over a decade later and decided to take vengeance?"

"I will deal with this." The blade inched slightly out of its sheath.

"No. You won't." Kenshin turned. "You won't deal with this. You will find those that sought to harm Tokio-dono, you will fight and probably kill them, but you will not deal with this. You will run like a coward until someone has mercy and puts you down for good."

"I have ne…" Saitou drew his blade and faced Kenshin directly.

"How long, Saitou? How long have you been running?" Kenshin was already ready.

"I never run." Saitou lunged forward. It was a simple attack which he was not surprised to see the battousai easily side-step, but it gained him better ground to fight on. Fighting in the front garden was hardly optimal.

"Coward." Kenshin hissed as he slipped past landing a kick to Saitou's hip with a small thank you to his Shishou for teaching him that move. "Slinking away from his own wife like a beaten cur."

"Shut up." Saitou shifted his weight, minimizing the impact of the kick and swinging away lightly to strike from the side. "What would a man who ran away for ten years know? Oh, yes, you know how to slink away, don't you."

"What are you afraid of, Saitou?" Kenshin brought his sakabato up, parrying the blow. "What keeps you running?"

Saitou smirked, shifting his weight on the ball of his left foot and allowing his blow to be parried and using the blade's momentum to swing into a lower blow towards Kenshin's hip.

Kenshin hurriedly brought his blade around to block and danced lightly away. Saitou followed and for a few moments, the street only had the sounds of the nearly musical ching of fine swords striking each other, the soft shuffle of well trained feet flitting lightly over raked gravel, and the sound of lungs gasping in exertion. Kenshin managed to land the first cut, striking Saitou across the side of his calf in a half deflected blow. Saitou retaliated by slamming his elbow into the slighter man's midsection and sending him reeling for a precious half second.

"Does this make you feel better, Saitou? To forget what a complete failure you are in a fight? Or is that the problem? I won't kill you? You would like to forget permanently, to bow away from Tokio-dono by dying in a fight." Kenshin taunted, slicing another cut across Saitou's leg parallel to the first. "How frustrating for you."

"I am not a failure." Saitou hissed, shifting his weight and using it to drive Kenshin back with a heavy blow.

"That's pure crap." Kenshin flicked to the side, using his speed to get a better position. "Don't lie to me, Saitou. I know you."

Saitou slipped into gatatsou stance. He already knew Kenshin would block it, but it would leave an opening after the block to take a counter strike against the red head's right side with a kick. Two could play the kicking game. "Correction, you knew me."

As planned, the kick landed and the battōsai was thrown into a neighbor's garden wall.

**Tokio**

"…and Aoshi-sama said, "I really think we should leave now. But, hey, what fun would that have been?" Misaou smiled happily at Tokio who smiled numbly back.

Karou and Yahiko were arguing in the kitchen. Kenshin had made dinner and left it to keep warm by the fire. It was a beef hot pot (the recipe provided by Tae and the meat provided by Tokio wanting to avoid another round of Karou's family eel recipes) which Karou thought needed a bit of doctoring, probably with an eel or two.

"I told Aoshi-sama I could handle it, but he kept insisting…"

The beloved Aoshi-sama was sitting quietly next to the happily bubbling Misaou, sipping his tea and managing to maintain an impressive dignity while his companion tried her best to make a fun exciting story out of buying mochi balls from a less than thrilled vendor.

"…said to leave it alone." Yahiko was sounding desperate.

"It's just a small addition."

"And then, Aoshi…"

Tokio wondered if Saitou had received the message yet. She guessed if all went well, it should have reached him yesterday morning, or maybe in the afternoon. She glanced out at the now dark yard surrounding the dojo, considering if she should perhaps go inside behind closed shutters or if she should remain here where she could see if Saitou would come._ No, when he comes. He will come. My wolf would not leave me like this._

"…everything suddenly went flying and it was nearly raining mochi balls."

Tokio eyed the small trees that swayed softly in the dusk, framed by the last of the day's light. She had heard enough stories about assassins lurking in bushes, trees, and other foliage to make her bite her lip slightly with worry. Didn't Okita come back once with a knife wound from someone falling on him from a tree? Or was that Harada?

"Perhaps you would like more tea?" Aoshi broke into Misaou's story with his calm voice.

Tokio noticed that the small, chipped cup she held was empty and cold. She couldn't remember drinking it or even having picked it up in the first place. "Thank you, but allow me." She reached over and poured them all another round of tea.

"It is a lovely night."Aoshi murmured. "With only ourselves to enjoy the view."

Tokio gave him a searching look, then nodded. "The moon is quite beautiful and clear tonight."

"Yes. Quite beautiful." Aoshi sipped his tea peacefully.

Tokio watched the ninja for a moment. The sounds of the argument from the kitchen were dying down. Misaou was now happily watching the moon with Aoshi. The boys were sleeping quietly, and she was still waiting.

_He'll come. He's probably run into something._

**Saitou**

He had stepped out onto the porch to watch the wind play with the leaves in the garden. It was sunrise and Tokio had made him promise to stay for breakfast before he left again, so he got out of her way to wait uncomfortably on the porch.

"Papa." Tsutomo toddled out the open shoji to land clumsily against his back. "Papa."

Saitou froze but the child giggled wrapping himself around his neck with chubby arms. "Why aren't you with your mother?"

"Papa."

The child seemed to want to burrow into his back. It wasn't the most comfortable of sensations, and he hated anyone coming up behind him, much less touching his neck from behind. Still, this was Tokio's son. He could tolerate it.

He looked around. He could hear Tokio in the kitchen clicking something against the side of a bowl. He wondered if she would make tamagoyaki for him or if it would be soba. For once, he would like the tamagoyaki. It would take a bit longer to prepare, so he would have a good excuse to sit here near her for a few minutes longer.

Tsutomo, not liking being ignored, pulled on his hair. "Papa."

Saitou turned and pulled the child to sit in his lap. "Don't do that."

"Hmph." The child gave him one of his own scowls then smiled.

Now that he had the child, he was at a loss. What does one do with a tiny person? He studied the child and noticed that he was being studied back with his own cool, analytical expression. "Tell me, do you do this to your mother too?"

The child seemed unimpressed and turned away to scratch his nose.

"Does it work for you?" Saitou glanced over to where Tokio still could be heard puttering. "It never worked for me."

"Hmph."

"Thought so." Saitou went back to looking at the leaves. "When you are older and you find something that actually works on her, write to me and let me know."

Tsutomo watched the garden. The rising sun was casting a pattern of shadows and light through the tall bamboo that lined this section of the garden. The child watched the light wave and dance as the wind tousled the leaves.

He was a good looking child with strong, chubby arms and legs. His face was not quite the chubby angelic faces small children often had, but instead promised to be leaner and more angular when he was grown. His eyes though were soft and large with a thick fringe of lashes that swept in a girlish wing to highlight his eyes.

"You have your mother's eyes." Saitou finally commented. "Do you also see the world as she does?"

The little one, done with sitting, struggled back to his feet and made his way down into the garden to inspect the light and shadows more closely. He squatted next to one and peered at it a moment, studying it. "Papa. Look."

Saiou considered for a moment, then deciding Tokio wouldn't like her son to be wetted down with dew so early in the morning, went to see, and collect the child. "Yes, light and grass. It is quite nice."

"Breakfast is…Oh, Tomo. Can't you stay clean for more than two minutes?" Tokio sounded both amused and a bit tired.

Saitou picked her son up feeling guilt. He had only been in charge of the tot for a few minutes and he had already added to Tokio's workload for the day. "I didn't notice the dew until he was already…"

Tokio smiled, enoying the rare moment of seeing Saitou holding his son. She wondered if he even noticed that Tsutomo would one day be nearly his twin. "No, no. That's fine. Breakfast is ready husband. You should eat while it is still hot."

He set the boy on the porch next to his mother. "Thank you."

As he stepped past her into the house, Tokio and Tsutomo watched him walk away with identical expressions of regret.

"The garden was very nice this morning." Tokio smiled down at Tomo. "Did you like being here with your father?"

"Papa." Tsutomo nodded and headed in to breakfast.

**Saitou**

They had long ago lost the ability to plan strategically, and their grand sword fight had degenerated into a brawl with swords. They both weaved unsteadily on their feet from exhaustion.

"You scampered off like a scared rabbit." Kenshin taunted. "Forget the Wolf of Mibu, you are the Bunny of Mibu."

"Speaks the man who went off for ten years to find himself." Saitou panted swiping vindictively at Kenshin's ass as the other wobbled into a turn. "I've heard of people with lousy direction sense, but not being able to find yourself for ten years, that's a record."

"At least I have Karou-dono to come back to. Who do you have?" Kenshin skipped away from the blow and donkey kicked backwards, semi-surprised to hear Saitou grunt in pain as the blow connected. He hadn't expected such a childish move to strike, much less do damage. He filed the information away for the next time he and Saitou had to have a talk.

"No one."Saitou staggered back to lean against his own garden wall, holding his now outraged private parts. It took all his training not to fall to the ground and howl.

"You have Tokio-dono, so don't try and…"

"Shut it, Battōsai. The only reason I have even the semblance of a marriage is because Tokio is too honorable to leave." Saitou sighed, shaking his head trying to clear it.

"I don't think…"

"I noticed." Saitou sank down to sit against the wall. "You don't think. What do you think happened Battōsai, when the shogunate fell? Do you think everyone just dropped their swords and wandered off to find themselves? That a few unhappy people like Shishio crawled out of the wreckage like cockroaches to spread misery but the rest of us stepped into our new lives with hardly a blink?"

"I heard a few…"

"To the victor go the spoils. Isn't that what the Westerners say?" Saitou leaned his head back, not caring what Kenshin was doing. "The Choshu were hardly gracious in their victory. Those of us who bowed and accepted our defeat were punished. It would have been better if I had resisted, but I chose, for Tokio's sake to bow, so instead of a clean death, I got a slow one."

"Echigo prison. " Kenshin stumbled to sit near Saitou, wincing as his side snarled at him from the wound Saitou had given him.

"Lovely place." Saitou rummaged in the tatters of his uniform top and pulled out his cigarettes. "If the cold didn't kill you, the guards would. To this day, if I really hate someone, I let them live to go to prison. I have mercy on those I generally don't care about and kill them quickly so they don't have to suffer."

"Tokio-dono stayed with you though."

Saitou snorted out a small plume of smoke. "She has too much honor to leave." He took another drag. "It's only a matter of time though. She'll leave. She can do better."

Kenshin sat, prodding his wounds. The one in his side was not serious, but it would be painful for a few days. The other bruises, cuts, and scrapes were hardly better. "I have come to know Tokio-dono. If she wanted to leave, she would have done so by now."

"Do you know what happened after they let me out Battōsai?" Saitou glanced over to the smaller man. "I was sent to Gonohe. Do you know what kind of pit Gonohe was?"

"I went through it once. I thought it was very pretty." Kenshin considered his ruined gi and wondered if Karou would be able to fix it.

"Not as a farmer. The winters are brutal. The rainy season begins early and lasts until late. There is roughly two weeks every year that are nice. One that qualifies as spring and one that stands in for fall. You must have come through during one of those weeks."

"Still, you both managed…"

"Managed." The word fell dead out of Saitou's mouth.

"Have you considered that maybe she stayed because she cares for you?"

"No."

"Perhaps you should."

"Fuck off."

"Just consider it, Saitou. You managed to survive the revolution, Echigo, and Gonohe. You have never backed down once. Like the swordsman you are, you shifted your position for your own advantage, you bided your time to find an opening, and pressed forward to gain ground. That is the nature of a fight. Is it a surprise to you that you do it in your life as well? Does it surprise you that Tokio-dono has been waiting for you to finish this battle?"

"Hmph."

"I'll take that as an 'I'll think about it.'" Kenshin painfully stood up. "We should get back to the dojo before Karou adds too much wasabi to the beef. Yahiko promised to defend our dinner, but she can be tricky."

Saitou painfully pulled himself up. "You are such a good housewife."

"As you said, fuck off." Kenshin's gold stained eyes glittered another moment before fading to a harmless blue. "We should be getting back, that we should."

"Perhaps."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Thank you for the wait. I did do a lot of research for this section, but I haven't managed to beat out the site address clipping. So…

Gonohe Village- I found it! Yes! Go me. I finally located the lovely village that Saitou lived in after his imprisionment. It is Gonohe, Aomori. You can search for it yourself and find out all sorts of fun facts. I will state here that I am painting a horrid picture of this place for the purpose of my fic. While it is far from the balmy tropics, and farming there is neigh on impossible, it probably is quite nice in some ways. Okay, it probably isn't, but the people who presently live there like it so I'm trying to sound positive.

Battōsai- I found this spelling and am trying it out. I don't love it, but here it is for those of you who like this spelling. I'm going to head back to the old spelling in the next chapter.

To those who complained that I don't like Kenshin- I actually do like him. He is annoying Tokio though. Have you ever been around a woman who is in the last months of pregnancy? It isn't all happiness and sunshine. They are scary, grumpy people who should be feared.

SunMoonNeko- When I have a moment, I'd like to know more. Thank you!

Tamagoyaki: My best author's note yet! Here is how to make it!

1-egg Tamagoyaki from Just Bento (a wonderful site which you should all go find!) http colon backslash backslash justbento dot com

1 'large' egg

1 Tbs. water

1 tsp. soy sauce (regular or light-colored; here I used regular, since that's all I had in stock)

1/2 tsp. sugar

1 Tbs. bonito flakes (optional, for added flavor)

Vegetable oil for cooking

Mix all the ingredients together well with a fork or chopsticks. Heat up a small (6 inch or 15cm) non-stick frying pan and spread thinly with oil (or use a non-stick cooking spray).

From this point on, it only takes about a minute and a half!

Once the pan is hot (if you put a droplet of water in, it dances and evaporates immediately), pour in the egg.

Stir gently with a fork or chopsticks until it's half-set.

Fold in half with a spatula.

Tidy up the other side a bit with the spatula.

Fold the one third of the egg over with the spatula. Press down.

Fold the other end of the egg over with the spatula. Press the whole thing down.

Flip over, and press again. Remove from the heat before it browns too much. (If you use light colored soy sauce, it won't get as brown.)

Cut in half and put cut side up, it is nicely multi-layered.

A 1-egg tamagoyaki is only about 100 calories and is great as a secondary protein, paired with a small piece of fish, a tiny tuna tofu burger or black bean mini burger and so on.


	10. The Wolves of Kamiya Dojo

Collateral Damage

Chapter: 10: The Wolves of Kamiya Dojo

* * *

**Tokio**

Tokio walked along the patio watching quietly as Karou kept a careful eye on Eiji and Tsutomo's practice drill. The boys were swinging their wooden swords up and down as Karou counted slowly. Eiji, with the arrogance of one who was practicing with a younger child, had an expression of condescending amusement on his face as Tomo furrowed his brown and bit his lower lip, concentrating on each swing of his wood blade.

"Five." Karou called, slightly adjusting Eiji's swing with a small nudge causing the boy to scowl.

Tokio noticed that Yahiko was watching the boys as he raked the path leading to the gate. A small smile tipping his mouth in amusement.

"Six. Eiji, keep the tip of the sword up a bit more. That's good."

Eiji's scowl deepened as he corrected himself and glanced over at Tsutomo who was too busy concentrating to notice. Tokio had noticed early on that Eiji liked attention, even when it wasn't good attention. He would rather have someone yell at him than to not say anything. It didn't surprise her when he pushed Tsutomo slightly causing him to loose his focus and make a bad swing. Her little cub though had his father's focus and merely shifted his position a bit, and kept Karou's pace smoothly.

"Eiji, concentrate! Seven. "

Tokio stepped past the porch and into the shade of the other side of the walkway. Kenshin was busy chopping a diakon as a pot of boiling broth sent a cloud of steam to swirl around the kitchen.

"Good morning, Tokio-dono." The red head looked chipper for a man who had barely pulled himself through the dojo gate last night, dripping blood, dirt, and bits of foliage as he subtly herded her wandering husband up the walk. "Breakfast will be ready in just a bit. Would you like some tea?"

"Yes, thank you." Tokio brushed him back to his radish as he started over for the teapot. "I can get this myself, Kenshin. You shouldn't have to bother with it."

He gave her a look she was sincerely becoming tired of, the pregnant-woman-shouldn't-do-such-things look. It made her teeth grind, her hackles raise, and she had to struggle not to start hissing like an affronted cat each time she received it. "Tokio-dono, as our guest…"

"I would have worn out my welcome when my house-hornet's attacked you." She lightly scooped up a teapot that at one time, with its lovely glaze, had been a prized possession, but now with its chips and cracked spout had been demoted to everyday use. "How is that sting? Can you rest now or is it still painful?"

"This one has no complaints." Kenshin turned back to the diakon and chopped it quickly, then threw it into the pot. "Yahiko still has a few…hmmm… troubles."

Tokio made sure her face was properly solemn, though watching Yahiko dealing with an itchy, insect bite on a very sensitive piece of anatomy had kept the dojo amused, especial since the boy refused to acknowledge the fact that he itched and therefore squirmed and had acquired an odd, twisting, dancing walk as he tried to rub the affected place without actually using his hands. "Yes, I have noticed. Do you think Megumi should be called?"

This was again a cause for amusement for the dojo since Yahiko, at the first sight of the doctor, would dash off claiming to be busy. If hauled forcibly to see the doctor, mainly by Karou, he would blush and struggle as he howled that he was fine, just fine and everyone should just leave him alone.

"I think Yahiko is a bit improved, that I do." Kenshin stirred his soup thoughtfully. "But we should keep an eye on him." A small smile quirked the corner of his lips. "Just incase."

Tea acquired, Tokio bowed out of the kitchen, leaving the dreaded Demon of Kyoto to his miso soup. The boys were still practicing in the yard and Yahiko was now washing the gate sign with a scrub brush and a pail of water as he chatted with a pretty, young girl who had stopped to watch him work.

When she got to her room, she slid the shoji screen quietly aside and stepped in. She had little expectation that the other occupant of the room wouldn't notice her entrance, but hoped he'd at least notice the attempt at quietness.

"I don't want tea." Saitou was grumpy this morning. Back during the revolution, she could always tell when a fight didn't go the way he had wanted it by the level a surliness the next morning. Seeing that he was moderately grumpy, she felt that he had probably done well, but wasn't satisfied with the outcome. Seeing that Kenshin was up puttering about the kitchen with hardly a wince or a limp, she wasn't surprised. Though the "good" outcome was hardly good.

"Breakfast will be ready soon." Tokio knelt down in front of him and started pouring the tea into two small cups. "Will you be going in to work today?"

Saitou was sitting on the futon with the sheets draped over his lap, scowling at the door. "I need to look into a few things."

It had been months, as her growing belly continued to show, since she had been able to see him closely. She didn't like what she saw. His streak of self-destruction was taking a toll. He'd lost weight. His hair, which usually gleamed a soft black so rich it had blue highlights was thinner and coarser. His eyes looked bruised. His lips pressed into a thinner tighter line. His cheek bones, already sharp and concave, curved into gauntness. He even smelled slightly wrong as she had curled against him, close to sweet-moldy smell, instead of the sharp leather, steel, and wind smell she loved.

"They can wait until after breakfast." She handed him the tea, not surprised when he took it with a polite nod. "Aoshi and Kenshin seem intent on talking to you."

He grunted at that. It was one of his annoyed grunts with a hint of agreement. She took it that he didn't want to talk to them, but felt he should.

"I would like to speak to you too." Tokio watched as his fingers tensed slightly around the tea cup. "If it hasn't occurred to you yet, there seems to be another child arriving in our lives soon." His fingers relaxed. She noted it and filed the information away for study later. "It should probably have a name."

Saitou actually paused mid sip as his eyes snapped to her belly.

Tokio suppressed a sigh. It had been the same when Tsutomo had been born. Saitou, one of the dreaded Wolves of Mibu, a feared inspector known for his acute insights into human frailties and minds, a police officer who prowled through the mire of human poverty and depravity, had actually looked surprised when after months of pregnancy, she had actually given birth to a baby. Where the human population came from in his mind, she didn't know. Perhaps he believed the Westerner's myth that mothers found their children under cabbage leaves, or after months of pregnancy a white bird would magically drop one off on the step. These magically appearing children, of course, already had names.

"Is it a boy or a girl?" He watched her belly suspiciously, as if it was trying to trick him.

"How would I know?" She sipped her tea, semi-amused as he continued to try to outstare her unborn child. "I was the one who predicted Tsutomo would be a girl. The old wives' tales let me down."

"Hmph." He actually looked miffed.

"We could name the child after your grandparents." She suggested as she tried to find a comfortable position to sit in. "or perhaps another family name?"

He sipped his tea then held it out for it to be refilled.

"A friend then? Shoji is nice." She watched as he scowled at his newly full tea cup. "Or perhaps a more recent acquaintance, Cho?"

"Do you have something else to discuss with me, wife?" He hunkered down to glower at his tea, imagining having his second child named after a broom.

Tokio sipped her tea. "As you wish, I do have something else to discuss."

Saitou tensed. She could see it not only in his fingers, but in his shoulders and neck as well. While he had asked the question, she didn't think he expected an answer. For years, she had meekly bowed away when asked that, not wanting to upset the fragile balance of their relationship, not wanting to risk what small amount of time she managed to have with him.

But, after so long, what did they really have?

"When will I be getting my husband back?" Tokio set her tea down. "I have been waiting, Hajime, for years and years. When will you come back? Your son barely knows you. You have another child on the way. Will you be coming home soon?"

"I am right here." Saitou shifted uneasily, then stilled himself, his training snapping him into place, immobile and ready.

"No, you are not." Tokio shook her head. "You are still far away, in Toba-Fushimi, in Eichigo, in Gonohe. When will you come home?"

Saitou shook his head. "I am here."

"Hajime…"

He got up and silenced her with a sharp gesture. "Enough, Tokio. I have things that need attending." He quickly started getting dressed. "I know you are upset and worried about these so called accidents. I will deal with that and the ones who caused them. You concentrate on taking care of yourself and Tsutomo. We can discuss this idea of yours that I am not here, when I clearly am, later."

His tone brooked no argument. She had to nearly bite the inside of her cheek as she bowed her head to keep the angry, worried rejoinder that sprang to her lips silent. "Yes, husband."

"I will be back tonight." He shrugged into his police jacket and headed for the door, scooping up his sword. "Stay inside, out of sight until either Aoshi, Himura, or I come back. Keep the children with you."

She miserably nodded her head and didn't look up as the shoji screen shut behind him.

**Saitou**

"It will help with your knees and even make your skin as soft and glowing as a child's." Saitou smiled as the old woman sniffed the potion he held out to her. "You will feel like a young girl."

"Ha. She feels like a withered, old hag to me at night." Her husband chortled then grunted in pain as the woman accidentally slammed her foot down on top of his. "I mean she's been a bit sickly lately and your tonic would be welcome."

From the look on the woman's face, there were going to be far fewer nights where her spouse would feel much of any of her at night. Saitou, carefully wrapped the small potion up and handed it to his customer. "May the gods look kindly at you."

She nodded and dragging her still apologetic husband behind her, made her way out of the market.

It was nearly fall and he wanted to get home soon. He had wandered deeply into the south, keeping mainly to the small villages in the mountains, to sell his medicines. It had been a calculated risk. He was far closer to Kyoto and people who would recognize him down here, he was also absent if the government sent its spies to check his whereabouts, but he had earned enough money to buy good food for the winter, as well as supplies they had been lacking for too long such as warm blankets and clothes suited for Gonohe's winters; new futons with warm, thick stuffing to keep them from the frozen ground; pots, kettles, plates, even the luxury of teapot and a full set of cups. He even managed to buy one more item, one that if the spies found he possessed it would earn him a quick, government sponsored death, a sword. It was cheap and under most combat conditions would probably snap like a twig, but with the petty bandits that were the usual trouble in their area, it was adequate. Tokio would be warm, safe, and well fed this winter. Perhaps, by spring, she would have lost the starved, lost look that had become her daily face. Maybe she would smile again.

He looked around the market and lifted his voice, "Medicine! Medicine! A cure for your ills."

The nearby vendors called out their wares as well, ignoring him for the most part. There was no ill will. Early in the season, he had been able to purchase a good second hand set of clothing as well as a small pony and accessories of a moderately successful medicine seller. While no one would ever mistake him for prosperous, he was no longer shunned, or pitied.

"Cure your ills. Take away your aches and pains."

A regular police patrol came through the market every hour. He had timed it. While he didn't recognize any of the people in it, he kept his head down, and his face masked by the brim of the cap he wore. But he watched them. They reminded him of his own squad from the Shinsengumi, with their brisk steps, quick eyes, and easy laughter. They weren't quite as good as his men had been. They were little more than children playing dress-up compared to his squad, but he found himself liking them.

"Medicine. Medicine."

Right on time, the patrol came through. He nodded to them respectfully, using the motion to hide his face, and turned to a customer who had come to view his goods. As he measured out a portion of dried ginko from Korea, he studied the leader of the patrol. He was a young man, and by the unsure way he issued orders, hadn't been in charge long. Saitou almost wanted to go over to him and give a few pointers. Since one of the pointers would have been to make sure to get a clear view of everyone's face that was present in the market, he kept them to himself, but he found himself nodding in agreement with some of the small orders the young man issued. The man had talent. In a few years, he would probably do very well for himself.

"Thank you, honored one, for letting me be of assistance." He bowed to his customer as the patrol, smiling easily and finding nothing suspicious to investigate, left the market area.

He was relieved they were gone, but at the same time a bit irritated. Could they not see? Were they blind? Never mind himself, a dangerous man from the Bakumatsu, there were others in the market they should have paused to investigate. From the way the two young women behind the tofu seller cringed meekly, and the odd bruises around their slim wrists, one could see something was wrong. After two days of watching, he was sure the tofu seller sold far more than tofu. The two girls were his true wares and he was only waiting for the right buyer to give him the signal to sell the girls as slaves. The small "boy" who lingered in apparent sleepiness on the step of the tea house, was hardly a child and every hour, just a few minutes before the patrol was due to come through, the "boy", who had to be at least twenty, would get up, cough three times, and in a few moments a woman would lead the a few customers out a side door into an alley where they would wobbled unsteadily away. The one legged man was picking pockets. The rice vendor kept looking nervously at the tofu seller as if frightened by him. The tea shop's upper floors kept wafting opium fumes.

At the end of the day, he could only shrug. He had other worries. The petty, sniveling crimes of a small town were none of his concern when he had to get home to his wife, survive another winter in the bleak hovel they lived in, had his own set of criminals to deal with, and show the Meiji government that he was a poor, broken penitent they had nothing to fear from.

Still, he would remember those faces.

**Tokio**

Karou had brought tea, Megumi had brought mochi balls, Tokio had brought roasted yams, and Misao had brought rice taffy. They sat quietly sipping their tea, eating their small feast, and listening to the manly portion of the Kamiya Dojo's inhabitants.

"I can't believe they told us to go do the dishes." Misao was taking their banishment from the manly discussion the worst. "Yahiko, the most useless lump of uselessness in the world, is fine, but we are fit only to do the dishes." She turned to Megumi. "How many times has his big mouth and stupid ass attitude almost gotten us killed. Six? Eight?

"Only once or twice." Megumi, with a sour look on her face, bit vindictively into her potato. "While I agree that Kenshin and Saitou are competent in these situations, I have to pause in awe that they consider Sano more use than us."

Karou was only growling at this point and gnawing on her taffy like a rabid tanuki.

Tokio nibbled on her mochi. "I agree. Saitou should at least have remembered that I am far from some brainless twit." She took a deep breath then sighed. "I feel like I've let him develop bad habits. The mangy cur."

"Dishes." Karou growled.

The men had banished their fairer counterparts and had taken over the main dojo to make their manly plans, which so far seemed to be that Kenshin, Saitou, and Aoshi would find the bad guys, whoever they might be, while Yahiko and Sano would stand guard over the fragile flowers, the ladies of the dojo. The ladies of the dojo had decided to sit under one of the dojo's windows and have a picnic. If they also happened to be in range for overhearing the manly conversation…

"They are stunningly pig headed." Megumi snapped at her potato again. "I suppose I should boil water and prepare bandages to put on their heroic wounds."

"What kind of plan is 'find the bad guys'?" Misao waved her hands, nearly poking Karou in the eye with her taffy. "That was Sano's idea wasn't it. Find the bad guys. Beat the bad guys up. Come back and mooch food."

Tokio nodded, "Yes, he came up with that while you were gone. What stuns me though is Saitou going along with that idiocy. I feel sadly let down."

"Do the fucking dishes." Karou growled.

"Do they even know who the bad guys, and I use the term loosely, are?" Megumi finished off her potato with a few more quick snaps and then wiped her hands daintily. "After all, a target is necessary here. Or are they planning on just beating up random people?"

"Seeing it's Sano's plan, I see a bar, some dice, and a lot of sake in their future." Misou chomped on her taffy.

Tokio winced. "That would not be good. Saitou is not the most…pleasant…man when he drinks."

"Pleasant?" Misao frowned.

"He tends to kill people."

"Oh."

"I'm going to geld Kenshin, then chain him to the sink." Karou finally joined the conversation.

"Surgical procedures should be left to the professionals Karou." Megumi primly picked up a mochi ball and popped it into her mouth. "I'll do the gelding, thank you."

"I've heard that dogs tend to wander less when they've been, well... snipped." Misao looked innocently away.

"A thought for future contemplation." Tokio smiled pleasantly.

"Did they really just say to not upset us?" Karou, who had pressed her ear to the wall blinked in surprise.

Misou frowned, "They don't seem to know us very well."

"I for one feel rather upset." Megumi licked a bit of powder off the tip of one finger.

"I feel if I am actually going to survive this, I should deal with it myself." Tokio took a sip of tea to clear her throat. "I think, since we are not allowed to be part of the hallowed, male discussions, we should deal with this situation ourselves."

Karou nodded. "Right! Ourselves!"

"Shhhh." Misao stood up and peeked through the window to the dojo. "They might hear."

"I agree." Megumi picked up another mochi ball and nibbled on it. "First, we must locate the source of the infection, I mean the people responsible for this."

"I think I can do that." Tokio nodded serenely. "I am quite good at finding information."

"Me too." Misao puffed up proudly. "I am okishira of the Oniwanbashu."

"I can assist as well." Megumi nodded. "It is astonishing how many people chatter about private things to a physician."

"I can help, too. I can listen in at the market." Karou looked a bit unsure.

"No, I think you should be our…spy." Megumi smiled nastily. "Kenshin, Sano, and Yahiko won't even notice you listening in on them. After all, this is your home. Even if Aoshi and Saitou wanted to, they couldn't very well banish you from your own house."

"They did a pretty good job tonight." Karou muttered.

"Let them have their fun." Tokio started peeling the skin off a sweet potato. "It makes them feel like they have the situation under control. We can work better if they think we are all too dependent on their manliness to do more than cluck like worried hens."

"How can you live like that?" Misao grumbled gnashing her teeth on the taffy.

"They can make up for it." Tokio laughed softly. "Then they have to make up for making up for it." She patted her stomach.

"Oh."

"Once we find the one's responsible, shall we allow them to deal with them, or do we handle it ourselves?" Megumi glanced slyly towards the men's direction. "I'm sure we could manage quite well without them."

"And deprive them of people to whack with swords?" Tokio shook her head. "We must allow them some fun."

"You know," Karou turned and faced Megumi and Tokio, "You two should probably not spend too much time together. It's a bit frightening."

"Hey. Quiet." Misao nudged Karou. "I'm learning here."

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Snipping- I freely acknowledge that they probably didn't neuter dogs in Japan at this time. I unfortunately can't research this since my internet access is limited at the moment, but I am pretty sure they didn't. However, it fit so neatly into the story, I am leaving it in and taking the flak for it.

Rice Taffy- this stuff is both yummy and deadly. It is the only substance I have ever eaten that made me say yummmmm while wondering if it was going to pull all the teeth out of my mouth. It takes a long time to actually chew a small bite. I made the mistake the first time I ate it by taking a normal sized bite of it, and chewed on it for about twenty minutes while imagining all the fillings in my teeth were being yanked out.


	11. Letters and Dangerous Women

Collateral Damage

Chapter 11: Letters and Dangerous Women

* * *

Sorry, sorry. I am still here! I haven't died! I just have been busy. Yet another job… This one pays better though, so perhaps I can eliminate one and have time to write again. As it is, I have been working on this for months and just got it done. Hopefully, I can get to work on the next today!...and have it done by next…October…. This SUCKS! I wanna write but have no time!

**Tokio**

_Dearest One,_

_How happy I am to hear that you now live so close to me in Tokyo. It has been so lonely living here since my husband passed. _(1)

Tokio glanced over to where Saitou was having a conversation with a twitchy looking Aoishi, a grumpy Sano, and a very puzzled looking Kenshin. They seemed to be plotting something that had to do with them going out in pairs and it seemed Aoishi and Sano had been both hoping to be paired with the easy-to-get-along-with Kenshin. Instead, it seemed Saitou and Kenshin were pairing up to leave the other two to spend a few happy hours together roaming the streets in search of clues.

_Saitou should be ashamed of himself for that house. I wish you had told me that you were actually living in that ramshackle shed. For some reason -which I am sure you know of since you are the one who suddenly forgot to tell me- I thought you would have enough sense to stay in Kyoto until all the repairs had been done. Truly, I wish you had told me. It would have been a pleasure to spend time with my nephew and Eiji._

Bluntness, it seemed ran like a waterfall in Saitou's family. Even his sister was blunt, loving, generous, but blunt.

_I am glad to see that you have done a lovely job repairing the place. Did I really see the dreaded Batousai puttering around your garden? He hardly looks like the type of man to inspire all those nightmares you had. He actually looks cute._

Tokio glanced up and inspected the dreaded Demon of Kyoto, who presently was looking a bit more confused than he had a minute ago. Whatever was going on no seemed to involve a rake and Saitou seemed very adamant about laundry. She watched the scene a moment, privately shared Kenshin's now doubtful look, and returned to her letter.

_I agree. Something is going on that is very odd. I may not have the contacts that I did as a younger woman, but I have heard a few small things._

Tokio pressed her lips together into a prim line to keep herself from laughing. All her dear in-laws had their own private intelligence networks that young Misaou would envy. When put together, the clan probably knew everything from when the Emperor hiccuped to what the dock boys down in Shanghai were eating for breakfast. Now that she had made them aware of Saitou's behavior, she expected they were all quietly gathering information about what could cause their most (comparatively) flamboyant member trouble.

_Saitou, it seems, was looking into some problems in the hinterlands. It seems that a few quite unsurprising deaths have become interesting enough in certain offices that it required a top investigator to drop all he was doing and make a long trip. While it is not certain if the reprehensible attacks on you were planned in advance and his trip was to leave you vulnerable, or if the attacker was taking advantage of the situation. I would still caution you to take all care. I do not like the thought that it could have been planned in advance._

Tokio hadn't liked that thought when it occurred to her either. She had shared that information with Saitou, who brushed it aside with a frown and a shake of his head.

Stubborn man.

The letter went on with family matters, which Tokio skimmed through until she was more at leisure to enjoy the familial gossip.

Saitou's meeting wasn't progressing well. Kenshin was looking more doubtful and Sano was rebelling outright. Aoishi looked like he wanted to retreat and have some tea. She was sure Misaou was lurking nearby with some ready to offer some with a great deal of sympathy...and wiliness. The girl was learning that offering a bit of tea and a quiet, sympathetic ear could gain her all kinds of information...and other things, from Aoishi. Between her an Megumi, they would have the young Okishira well trained in the art of dealing with difficult males in no time.

Karou, despite her natural tendency to trust and confide in those she loved, was also coming along quite well. It seemed her anger at Kenshin shooing her off so he could discuss things with the manly portion of the dojo still rankled. She was presently taking out her frustrations, which unhappily for Yahiko the meeting in the middle of the yard was once again reminding the young swordswoman of how irritated she was with Kenshin in particular and males in general, by whacking her poor student unmercifully while teaching him a rather tricky overhand swing-lunge combination.

The next letter, heavily incensed and beautifully folded, was also from an old friend. Mai, Saitou's old lover, had become a close correspondent through the years. The woman had become quite successful since the days of the revolution by becoming a respected grand dowager of a very fashionable, and elegantly reputable geisha house. Tokio skimmed the first part of the letter, which was Mai's lament that Tokio had left Kyoto to live in "that barbaric place" and the rather amusing story of how one of her previous neighbors had made a bit of a spectacle of himself during the last Cherry Blossom Festival by accidentally knocking a minor official's wife's wig off into a small stream, thus ensuing a chase for the wig through startled and bemused onlookers. The poor man, who was always excessively worried about his public image because he hoped to one day be promoted to working as a secretary at court, was still hiding in seclusion claiming that he had a "small ailment" that persisted in troubling him.

_I have a few contacts in Tokyo that keep me up-to-date with Saitou's general activities. I know that you have worried about him, and I have too. I wonder if he would be shocked to know that even after all this time I still think of him fondly. Under all his sneering and rudeness, he is one of the few men that I honestly can say is truly both honorable and kind. Now, I know he would be shocked to hear that, but he can't hide from an old friend's eyes. _

Mai, old. That was a new concept, but not surprising. Mai had decided that adding a few years onto her real age would make her, and by extension her house, more reputable. A fine, youthful looking, older woman was quite a draw while a normally aged, slightly older geisha was not just common but almost to be pitied since she inhabited the twilight between youthful charms and aged loveliness. Tokio was certain that in a year or so, Mai would branch out a bit and start selling beauty secrets, perhaps something with ground up pearls in it.

_I have heard that his subordinate Chou was to be congratulated. Saiou and Chou were assigned to solve a murder a short time ago. Chou, to the wonder of all, managed to solve the crime before Saitou! That is quite an accomplishment to beat out such a sharp nosed wolf. It seems that on old man killed a police officer, took his body across town and left it disrespectfully in an alley. The deceased officer, to risk speaking badly of one who has passed into the afterlife, was hardly worth Saitou's effort, being a low, degenerate man of poor morals and worse habits. Yes, Chou is to be congratulated._

Tokio frowned. Mai would not have brought that up unless it was important. She made a small mental note to find out more about that incident.

Megumi, who had made regular visits to "check on" her pregnant patient, waved cheerfully at the men as she glided gracefully into the dojo's yard. Sano watched her with a mixture of cocky amusement, and a bit of unconscious longing. Megumi, with a teasing fox smile, slipped past and walked toward Tokio.

"You should be ashamed of yourself." Tokio smiled. "The poor boy is half in love with you."

"And half in love with Kenshin, Tae, and a half dozen other women that I know of." She sat down on the step near Tokio. "He loves the world. I can't compete and to be honest don't want to."

"Kenshin?" Tokio looked back at the group reevaluating the dynamics.

"Not romantically, he's far too immature and naive to have those thoughts." Megumi accepted the cup of tea Tokio poured for her. "Give him a year or two. It should be interesting to see."

"Hmmm." Tokio nodded. "Yes, quite interesting, seeing that Karou has her claim on Kenshin, and from what I can see Kenshin seems quite attracted to our sweet friend. But young love hardly makes much sense."

"Which is why I will not be allowing silly emotion to make my decisions for me." Megumi waved one hand dismissing her own feelings. "I will choose by a set of criteria that I have made which includes social position, wealth, good hygiene, and if possible, acceptable looks."

"That sounds quite practical." Tokio smiled softly at Saitou, who at that moment looked over, noticed her sweet expression and started looking suspicious. "Poor Sano doesn't seem to meet many of those qualities."

"I noticed." Megumi sipped her tea, not quite hiding a sly smile.

"Take my advice. Don't play too many games if you don't want the games to continue." Tokio grinned to herself as Saitou started looking twitchy under her continued loving look.

Megumi nodded, "A weakness of mine, admittedly, but I think I can safely say that I will not get caught in that trap."

Saitou scowled at Tokio, as she tipped her head and continued gazing at him with a sweet expression. "Have you heard anything?"

"Not much. The boy who worked for the tile seller claims he was not on the roof and didn't see anyone suspicious near there." Megumi winced as Karou landed a hit on Yahiko that made a rather loud hollow thud. "The tile seller is also puzzled and now thinks his shop is under the influence of evil spirits."

"Glad to add a bit of color to the neighborhood." Tokio suppressed a laugh as Saitou made a small I'll-deal-with-you-later gesture and turned back to the other men. It cheered her to see that little movement and hoped he would take the matter up later.

"The man that attacked Kenshin was taken into police custody. Since no one was hurt and he apparently claimed to be drunk at the time, he was fined for having a weapon and creating a public nuisance and released. He has since left Tokyo as far as I can tell."

"Interesting and very convenient." Tokio bit her lip thoughtfully. "I'd be interested to know if he left, or was made to leave permanently."

"Dead?" Megumi's voice dropped to a low whisper. " Do you think..."

"If I had convinced someone to kill another person, even if that person didn't succeed, I would not like for them to be in the position to say I did the convincing."

Megumi looked at her suspiciously, "Why do I sometimes think Saitou is the safer of you two to be around?"

**Saitou**

_She's up to something._

Instantly, the doubting thoughts he lived with for so long crowded into his head.

_It's not my business. If she wants to play games, she can. I should just be grateful that she still lets me pretend to be her husband._

_No, that's not right. She's here. She's playing with me. She is not pretending, so why should I?_

_But, she is up to something._

"I don't see why we have to dig through trash heaps." Sano grumbled. "You can't seriously think we could find..."

"If Chou was here, I'd make him do it." Saitou snapped. "He isn't and we need to find out if my sudden reassignment to the countryside was planned. Happily for us, my boss is careless with his memos and tosses them away instead of burning them."

"Careless of him." Aoishi shook his head in a disapproving, professional manner. "It's the first thing I taught my trainees in the Oniwanbashu, destroy your correspondence."

Kenshin nodded in agreement, which left Sano glancing between the older men.

"Why even write stuff then? I never needed it."

The three others turned their gazes on him with various looks of pity, amusement, and mild surprise.

"Hey, don't look at me like I'm the village idiot." Sano protested raising his hands in a mild defensive gesture.

"There is no "like" about it." Saitou couldn't help that comment slipping out, but then again, he hadn't been trying very hard to be civil to the moron. He'd had a frustrating night with Tokio asking far too many astute questions and having nothing to give her but evasions. She was probably over there reading her "friendly" letters getting more information than he could hope for in a week of dealing with Sano. He made a mental note to inspect those "friendly" letters when he got back to see if there was any "friendly" information he could use.

"Sano..." Kenshin's voice dropped to a confiding, comforting tone. "Why didn't you say something. I could have..."

"I suppose I could arrange a few..." Aoishi started.

"I can read! I learned when I was a kid, so quit it." Sano blushed. "I just don't go in for writing stuff down that might get me in trouble. Too risky."

The image of a fluffy yellow chick trying to write with its tiny beak on a piece of paper floated through Saitou's head. Irritated, he mentally swatted the chick, sending it off in a flurry of apologetic cheeps and floating downy feathers.

"When will Chou return?" Aoishi, who was partnered with Sano and was privately planning to make him to most of the dirty work should they indeed end up raking through a garbage pile, hoped it would be soon. While he understood that the two swordsmen wanted to find the man who had attacked Tokio, and were in the best position to learn if the man had held a grudge against Kenshin or the Shinsengumi, he didn't like the idea of doing all the dirty work.

"He's not. If I leave him investigating in the country, it looks like I am planning on returning quickly. I just have to make a bit of a show of following a few leads from that investigation in Tokyo, and if I was indeed assigned that case to leave Tokio vulnerable, the attackers will be somewhat comforted that I will be leaving soon."

"Perhaps buying us enough time to find them." Kenshin nodded. "But I do not like that Tokio-dono figured that out. She should not have to worry about such things at this time, that she should not."

"She's probably hunting him down as we speak." Saitou snorted. "One does not upset Tokio lightly if one has even a slight bit of sense."

"Ha. Afraid of your little wife?" Sano laughed, until Saitou stepped casually down on his foot causing a sharp stabbing pain to radiate up through Sano's calf.

"Respectful. You should be too."

Kenshin, remembering the incident on the front porch when he was sure danger threatened the dojo only to find it was Saitou's delicate, smiling, pregnant wife that was causing his instincts to scream, nodded. "Yes, respectful, very respectful. Perhaps we could ask Hiko to come and..."

Saitou suddenly had the picture of a tiny batousai hiding behind his master, clutching his robe and wailing about the scary woman. "You can calm down, Battousai. It seems Tokio likes you." He paused and shrugged, "Not that it will do you much good, but I have found that the carnage is less if she enjoys your company."

"You two make her sound..." Sano started with a snicker, but was interrupted.

"Dangerous." Kenshin murmured.

"I prefer to think of her as highly intelligent and capable." Saitou gave a quick look towards where his wife was still talking to the fox-woman. That was a friendship that was sure to haunt him.

"She can't be that..." Sano stopped again as Kenshin turned to him looking very serious.

"I would keep that opinion to yourself, Sano."

"While watching the Battousai be terrified of my wife is amusing, we do have a few more pressing concerns." Saitou turned back to the conversation. "Shall we go or are we going to gossip a bit more?"

Past

"A job? Working for the Meiji?" Tokio sounded doubtful. She looked better now than she had for a long time with plumper cheeks and fewer shadows on her face, but the years of starvation and harsh living had made her look fragile to him.

Saitou refused to look at her. He didn't want to see the disappointment in her eyes. Not only had he put her through starvation, danger, and years of sheer misery, he was now going to work for the very people that had put them in that situation. It was the ultimate betrayal. He could justify it in his mind: that he was going to continue the code of the Shinsengumi, that he was going to work to bring justice and honor to a corrupt system, that by working as a police officer he would be protecting Japan the best way he still could. He couldn't justify it to her though. Every idea, every word he thought to utter to explain, every single syllable, would just tell her that it had all been pointless. Every single time she had to go hungry, the small row of graves that was all that remained of their stillborn children, the humiliation of having to grovel in the dirt before some pompous Meiji lackey, the bitter winters of shivering in their miserable shack, the rags that passed for clothing...meaningless. All so that he could throw it all aside and become the Meiji's good little lap dog.

But she would be safe, and that in the end was what was going to make him put his neck in the Meiji's collar and come to heel.

"Yes." He turned and looked out their shack's door at the barren fields. He had rented them out to the neighbor to farm, having given up farming for selling medicines, but a storm had once again destroyed the crops just after they had sprouted. Even the replanting hadn't worked since after the torrential rain, a drought had settled over the region. Fields had shrunk to kitchen gardens that had to be laboriously watered by hand from the village well. "I will be starting in Kyoto in a month."

"Kyoto...a month? Husband..." Tokio reached out to touch him, then drew her hand back before he noticed. "Very well, one month."

"I have arranged a room to stay in until we can find better accommodations." Saitou hated the resigned sound of her voice. When had that happened? When had he, himself, become something to be resigned to? He snuck a glance behind him then looked quickly away.

It was all his fault. She didn't say it. She didn't even have to think it. But the defeated, lost look on her face...

Kyoto would be good for her. He would provide her a fine house, good food, soft silken clothes. She would have the delicate teas she loved, the ethereal art of birds and mist that she preferred, the choicest of foods. Once again, she would have fine, pale skin that was untouched by harsh sun and smooth manicured hands. She could again walk with dignity and safety down Kyoto's streets, listen to fine music, visit gardens, and pray at a shrine that wasn't used part of the year as a storage shed for sake barrels.

"Will you…" She trailed off behind him as he stepped out the door. He didn't want to hear what she had to say. It would do no good for either of them to play out that scene.

Once, she would have come after him and demanded in her own sly way answers to her questions. Once, he wouldn't have even thought of trying to evade her. Once, he was her husband, her partner in life, her friend, now he was only…what? What was he now?

No one.

It was fitting then that he go to work for the Meiji, who had sold themselves to the West for profit and power. There was no place better for him to hide from his wife and the man he once was.

* * *

**Author Notes:**

I have no idea if this happened in real life. Facts about Saitou are pretty slim, but his family's data is even slimmer. I am looking into other sources for info, but that is very low on my to-do list.


End file.
